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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCRC-02-19-02CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 1 CARMEL REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION Meeting, Tuesday, February 19, 2002. President Rick Roesch called the meeting to order at 9:05 a.m. Commission members present were Luci Snyder and Ed Burke, constituting a quorum. Also present were Kelli Hahn, Les Olds, Steve Engelking; Mayor Brainard, Matt Price, Mike Shaver, Sherry S. Mielke, Kate Weese, Stu Hirsch, Nick Kestner. Mr. Carter and Mr. Koven arrived shortly after the meeting began. Mike Hollibaugh was also present during part of the meeting. Phyllis Morrissey as support staff. Mr. Roesch asked for a motion to change the order of the agenda, to delay the election of officers till later in the meeting. So moved by Ms. Snyder and seconded by Mr. Burke. The motion was approved. Approval of Minutes Mr. Burke moved the minutes of the January 9, 2002, meeting be approved. Following a second by Ms. Snyder, the motion was unanimously approved. Mr. Burke moved the minutes of the January 15, 2002, meeting be approved. Following a second by Ms. Snyder, the motion was unanimously approved. Kestner Lease Proposal Mr. Kestner has not yet moved out of his building at 912 S. Range Line Road. He proposes to be out by March 1, and as compensation pay to the CRC the February rents from the tenants, Pizza King, Cool Beans and Muldoon’s, which will total $6,677.42. On March 1, Mr. Kestner will no longer be responsible for any of the operating expenses of the rental properties. He gave a list of account numbers to Mr. Roesch to aid in the transfer. There was considerable discussion about when Mr. Kestner’s new building was ready for occupancy and what the lease required. [Mr. Haas arrived during this discussion.] Mr. Burke moved the CRC accept Mr. Kestner’s proposal for being out of the Range Line building by March 1st, with the CRC receiving the February rents and Mr. Kestner paying the February expenses. Following a second by Mr. Carter, the motion was unanimously approved. Mr. Engelking and Mr. Kestner will work out the final details on the transfer of the expenses and utilities. Mr. Haas gave abstracts of the leases to Mr. Engelking. Election of Officers For the office of President, Ms. Snyder nominated Mr. Roesch and Mr. Koven seconded the nomination. Mr. Carter moved the nominations be closed. Following a second by Mr. Burke, the motion was unanimously approved. The nomination was approved. CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 2 For the office of Vice President, Ms. Snyder nominated Mr. Burke and Mr. Carter seconded the nomination. Mr. Carter moved the nominations be closed. This was unanimously approved following a second. The nomination was approved. For the office of Secretary, Mr. Koven nominated Ms. Snyder and Mr. Carter seconded the nomination. Mr. Burke moved the nominations be closed. This motion was unanimously approved and the nomination was approved. Mr. Haas said the Council and Mayoral appointments should be made by the end of the year so the election of officers could take place in January. It was noted that officers from a previous year can stay in place, but only for thirty days. Councilors said since new councilors take office the first of the year, it would not be feasible for CRC appointments to be made before the end of the year. Report from the Mayor Mayor Brainard has met several times with the owners of Muldoon’s/Cool Beans and they would like to build one or two buildings next to Shapiro’s. He sent them on to Karl. Pizza King owner has contacted Steve and has been told to talk to Karl also. Mayor Brainard continued: A local hairdresser has indicated an interest to go into a back building. A local software company with eighty employees wants 14,000 square feet. Their current lease is up in about fifteen months so they are interested in one of the office buildings. Three local banks have approached Mayor Brainard about the northwest corner of Range Line Road and City Center Drive. He noted the site will require a retaining wall. “Another office builder has indicated an interest, so it looks like we’re going to get at least one of the office buildings off the ground.” Further discussion will be done in Executive Session. Mayor Brainard said there was also a major department store which had indicated an interest. Ms. Snyder expressed a concern about the size of a department store. Mayor Brainard said it would be a smaller boutique for the department store. Discussion followed about the importance of establishing some guidelines for what would work best in the area. It was noted that whatever is planned will have to be somewhat flexible. This will be addressed further in the strategic planning session. Report from the Director Demolition of Old Town site should start next week, following removal of the asbestos by SESCO. Report from the Engineer CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 3 Ms. Weese: On the City Center Drive streetscape, 56% of the total contract has been paid out. The balance is for the streetlights which are not in yet and the retainage that’s been held back. There are a couple of small items on the punch list which need to be corrected. On the Old Town site, only about one fourth of that site is grassy area. Before we had drainage that didn’t work real well because it wasn’t graded to drain fast. We’re going to do everything we can to get the storm drainage to direct deposit into the drainpipes on the east and west side. But if detention is necessary because those pipe sizes weren’t designed to accommodate a more fully impervious site, we may have to have AMLI design into the plan some underground detention. AMLI will pay for a portion of that detention facility, but if some detention becomes necessary just because there was none before and the site as developed can’t dump into the old town storm sewers, we may have to design some very minimal system. I wanted the CRC to be aware of that because there would be some expenses paid by the CRC in that case. Report from DOCS Liaison Ms. Hahn distributed some update info on the C-1 and C-2 ordinance changes and the Lumberyard mall rezone. All are public hearing items tonight at the Plan Commission. We can discuss these further at a later meeting. Mr. Carter asked Mr. Engelking if he knew how long the Old Town demolition would take. Mr. Engelking said it is scheduled to be down in six weeks. Disassembling the metal building so it can be reused will take the most time. Mr. Carter once again noted the importance of timeliness on the demolition because of the Monon Trail usage. Brief discussion followed. Financial Report Ms. Mielke distributed a 2001 end of the year report. This is balanced with the financial books of the City. The February 1, 2002, balance is $1,850,989.00. “TIF debt service for 2001 is in January 2002 because the Auditor’s office handed out their results late. You do see the debt service for the entire year. The last six months was paid by the general fund and there was a transfer to CRC so we can now obtain the revenue.” Ms. Mielke continued: Working with Phyllis Williams in the County Assessor’s office, I’ll be developing a model which we can use to forecast the TIF revenues. It will be available after March 1. Mr. Roesch asked who is doing the paperwork on the grant and can we specifically count on that to match the cash flow. Ms. Mielke said Mr. Engelking would be receiving the application for the HUD money [grant]. The money [$1,000,000] will be available sixty days after the completed application is received at HUD. We can draw upon it directly once it is received. CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 4 Mayor Brainard said the money was a “sure thing” but might actually take ninety days to come in. Mr. Burke: Sherry, the critical point is that you and Steve are fully aware that it is very critical that the application be sent out [in a timely manner]. Ms. Mielke: Absolutely. Mr. Koven asked about the time frame of payments for the reflecting pond work. Mr. Olds: You have to pay as you go. The contractor cannot survive without monthly draws. The contractor has a schedule that we have established. He builds against that. Invoices will be to CSO ten days prior to when packets are mailed to the CRC members, so we can approve them. We’ve also told them that the Commission will pay for materials due to the time frame. We’ve asked them to get all the materials on order right now so if there’s any problems we’ll know early. We will pay the value of the materials at the time of delivery to the site. The contractor is submitting samples to us at CSO. I’d like to ask the Commission for permission to approve the stone sample which goes around the base of the pond and the brick for the pavilions which is going to match the color on the AMLI project. There’s still the issue of the bottom color of the pond which we’re hopefully going to resolve soon. We’re trying to find some two foot ponds to take a look at. Again it was noted the critical issue of when the grant payment is received. Discussion followed. Mr. Koven said we should have an alternative plan in place if the grant money is late. General agreement. Mr. Koven also noted monthly rents would be received beginning in February. Security deposits from the tenants will be assigned to the CRC. Mr. Roesch thanked Ms. Mielke for her work on the financial reports and also Mr. Burke for his extra help. Mr. Koven asked if we had closed on AMLI yet. Mr. Haas said we had not because of a problem with the survey from Cripe. Mr. Engelking had to switch to Wiehe Engineers to do the survey work. Disappointment was expressed with Cripe’s work. Ms. Weese noted there may have been some confusion between a land title survey and a site survey. Report from Attorney Ms. Haas: A notice was sent to Mr. Renken, Village Cleaners, notifying him that the well would have to be capped for two reasons. One was to prevent the possible spread of contamination through the well and the hazardous nature of the water. The second is that there was no right under the lease for Mr. Renken to use the well. It was then capped on Friday while we were still trying to get a hearing set for the eviction. We received notice that Mr. Renken would be vacating on February 23. That will permit the continuation of the demolition. We still have a lawsuit pending against Mr. Renken because of two parts, one is for the eviction, which presumably won’t be necessary now and the other is for the CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 5 damages resulting from his contamination of the premises and his default of the lease. I expect we’ll be adding to that some damage claims for his delaying the demolition. They [Renken] have asked whether we want them to remove the equipment or whether we want to take care of it. Discussion followed. Mr. Olds said the equipment in there has to be decommissioned [removed according to guidelines]. It was decided to have SESCO make arrangements for removing the equipment, following a quote from them for $2500. [This figure was received later in the meeting and once the amount was known, Mr. Burke moved the CRC approve up to $2500 for SESCO to do the equipment removal. Following a second by Ms. Snyder, the motion was unanimously approved.] The estimated cost to remobilize for the demolition is $6500. Mr. Olds in response to a question from Mr. Koven: The demolition contract calls for the parking lot to be removed, leaving a line in front of Goodyear. We moved south all the way up to a sixty foot strip which we are leaving as part of Shapiro’s agreement for their staging area. That’s the last little piece that has to come out under this contract. All the areas around the utility poles also have to come out. The former parking lot will be hydo- seeded. Mr. Haas continued his report. On Sherwin Williams, the judge reversed himself on the decision which had been very favorable to the Redevelopment Commission. It’s now a jury decision under his ruling as to the period of damages which could be from one to eleven years. That doesn’t mean they necessarily will be allowed to [inaudible] but there’s a possibility of that. A new trial date has not yet been set. I’ve instructed our counsel to postpone our trial as long as he can. Again if we need to we can plead the money into court but I don’t see any reason to do that either, because the premises are down now. Sometime maybe years from now we can pay them some money if necessary. We have sent them a notice regarding their contamination. Their corporate response was, “What do we [CRC] have to document the facts as set forth in the notice to them?”, which was a little bit amusing because one of the facts that I set forth was that they had done nothing to clean up the contamination. Of course, there’s no documentation of them not doing anything, being difficult to prove a negative. My guess is we’ll either have to add a claim to the lawsuit against Sherwin Williams for the contamination or file a separate suit. I’m still hoping to get the whole matter settled. Mr. Koven asked what the CRC’s potential exposure was with Sherwin Williams. Mr. Haas replied $385,000 according to the court appointed appraisers. Using our appraisers’ estimates it would be $7,000. So the range is from $385,000 to $7,000 minus the contamination. For the budget, take the two and add them together then take the average. Putting it in the 2003 budget is safe. First Indiana Bank CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 6 Mr. Haas received a letter representing First Indiana Bank expressing an interest [again] for the northwest corner of Range Line Road and City Center Drive. Mr. Olds said the site is 39,300 square foot but could be expanded to the west. They would pay $7.65 a square foot for an acre and a quarter. They want a credit against that for $175,000 for the land at Merchants Square. There was no indication of their time frame. Mr. Haas continued: We do need to address the relocation of Muldoon’s. This will be discussed further in Executive Session. Huffer/Goodyear Both of our condemnation offers have been rejected. Goodyear rejected it outright. Huffers allowed the acceptance period to lapse. Right now Huffers and Goodyear are looking into some sites in the new redevelopment areas to hopefully find a new location. Report from the Architect AMLI pylon sign has been resubmitted to them for their comments. We’ve had a number of discussions about the Shapiro signs and the scope of work the CRC has committed to per the attached memorandum from Rowland. Mr. Olds distributed the documents. This discussion will be continued during the strategic planning session later today. Field Survey work has been completed for Parcel 5 and 4. Parcel 7 is still being completed for documentation; the field work is done. On Parcel 4 in your packet you’ve got the survey with the comment “a buildable site” to avoid any controversy there. Due to the slope of the ground, the only way would be to build a retaining wall along the north side. It is also based on the fact that the existing curb cut along Range Line Road is a shared curb cut, that it straddles the right of way line and the CRC’s use of it would be shared with the owners of the retail shopping complex to the north. To make the site buildable it would take about $250,000 for the retaining wall and $100,000 for fill. The CRC can use this information in determining the sale price of that property. Mr. Roesch said the CRC had received a proposal and it will be discussed in Executive Session. Mr. Olds: One last issue. We have to change the right of way on Parcel 4 and 5. Currently the right of way runs right through the middle of the property which makes it worthless. We have to bring the right of ways back into line with City Center Drive. We have legal descriptions and everything put together for it. Approval of Invoices Mr. Carter moved the invoices in the amount of $204,676.41 be approved. Following a second by Mr. Burke, the motion was unanimously approved. CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 7 Old Business None New Business Mr. Roesch said there were two TIF areas which need to be captured. Mr. Price distributed plans to the Commission for the review. The areas are being considered in order to capture the taxes before the March 1, 2002, deadline. Further analysis will be done in order to confirm the construction currently in progress. Mr. Shaver: The CRC does not need to make any decisions today. The entire area has been addressed in the findings. We are only dealing with the part you [the CRC] have jurisdiction over, but it also addresses the areas which will be annexed in the findings. This is to save time later on. The question of what to do here is a matter of two things: how you decide to deal with the portion of the area that’s incorporated versus the area that is unincorporated. The plan covers the entire area regardless of whether it’s incorporated or not. In approximately another nine months I would expect that C210 is going to be inside the City anyway which means that depending on how we sit this March 1 in terms of capturing the tax increment this could be an important issue or a non-issue. But there are a number of individual projects within the Old Meridian area and they have been approved by the Plan Commission. You can declare the entire area as an economic development area or you can simply pick up part of it and then add incrementally to it as individual projects come along. That allows you to decide on each individual project what you are and are not going to pay for. Basically on the North Illinois Street, the CRC is becoming partners with City and the Plan Commission on a long term plan to develop a new road corridor. Secondly, on Old Meridian Street, a lot of money and effort went into the corridor. You are here to say we’re here to participate in this in whatever way is effective and to “leave that door open” for the future individual decisions you have to make. You can make those incrementally or with sweeping gestures over the entire area. There are a number of options. It was noted the maps need to be corrected. Mr. Price: To satisfy the deadline, the CRC needs to adopt a declaratory resolution by March 1. This will then relate back to the base assessed value of March 2001. Mr. Price said he needed to verify the area boundaries. If a special meeting is needed it must be noticed forty-eight hours in advance. The CRC took a break and reconvened at 11:20 for the strategic planning session. Strategic Planning Session This portion of the meeting will be reported via the notes taken by Kelli Hahn. (See enclosed.) CRC Minutes, February 19, 2002 8 Next Meeting The next meeting will be March 13, at the earlier time of 5 p.m., followed by an Executive Session. Adjournment Mr. Burke moved the meeting be adjourned. Following a second by Ms. Snyder, the motion was approved and the meeting adjourned at 3:50 p.m.