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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCRC-02-26-011 CARMEL REDEVELOPMENT COMMISSION Meeting, Monday, February 26, 2001 President Rick Roesch called the meeting to order at 7:06 p.m. Members present were John Koven, Amy Boldt, and Ron Carter constituting a quorum. Also present were Mayor Brainard, Buddy Hennessey from Merchants Pointe Associates, LLC, Les Olds, Councilor Wayne Wilson, Karl Haas, Phil Dunlap from Indianapolis Star, Loren Matthes from H. J. Umbaugh & Associates, Matthew Price from McHale, Cook & Welch, and Michael Shaver from Wabash Scientific. Sherry Mielke and Phyllis Morrissey as support staff. Approval of Minutes Mr. Koven moved the CRC approve the minutes from the regular meeting of January 10, 2001, the Executive Session of January 10, 2001, and the regular meeting of January 22, 2001. Following a second by Ms. Boldt, the motion was unanimously approved. Report from the Mayor Mayor Brainard announced that Joe Staehler is retiring effective March 2, 2001. Stephen Engelking has been appointed to replace Mr. Staehler as Director of Administration in the Mayor’s office effective March 5. Michael Hollibaugh has agreed to return to the City to take over the reins of DOCS. Since Mr. Staehler’s retirement, that leaves the CRC without a director so Mayor Brainard nominated Mr. Engelking to replace Mr. Staehler as the director for the CRC. Baker & Daniels who helped us with wetlands offsite mitigation issues with the Army Corps of Engineers has informed us that because of the recent Supreme Court decision about wetlands we may no longer be required to mitigate the wetlands on the AMLI parcel. Mayor Brainard asked for acquiescence to meet with Baker & Daniels to discuss and investigate further and report back to the Commission. The projected cost for that mitigation by J. F. New was approximately $400,000. Mr. Roesch entertained a motion for endorsement of Steve Engelking as director of the Carmel Redevelopment Commission. So moved by Ms Boldt. Following a second by Mr. Carter, the motion was approved with three favorable votes. Mr. Koven abstained. Director’s Report Kate Weese, City Engineer, came to report to the Commission that a problem has arisen with the site work on the AMLI parcel. Ms. Weese distributed a memo explaining the situation. Poindexter has to stop their dirt moving operations in the detention area because of the inability to achieve the required moisture content in the compacted dirt being moved for the purpose of building up for AMLI’s building pad. There is no dryer dirt available on site and drying what is there would take too much time. Ms. Weese suggests the soil on site be limed, a method of soil stabilization. The estimated cost for this would be $75,000-$95,000. 2 Ms. Weese recommends the CRC give Mr. Roesch the authority to approve a change order up to $95,000 for this purpose. Discussion followed. Ms. Weese said this work could be completed by or before mid March to meet the sitework completion deadline. This could be made part of the change order with Poindexter. She also noted she could verify with Mr. Thomas, from AMLI, that this change order would be acceptable to them. Mr. Roesch called for a motion from the CRC granting Mr. Roesch the authority to approve a change order up to $95,000 for the purpose of soil stabilizing on the AMLI site, conditional upon AMLI’s approval and a guaranteed completion date. So moved by Ms. Boldt. Following a second by Mr. Carter, the motion was unanimously approved. Financial Report Ms. Mielke distributed the financial report and noted the February balance is $4,053,622. February invoices were not included in the report since it was not known whether the checks would be issued in February or March. She noted estimated TIF money from 126th Street is listed on the report. Discussion followed. Mr. Roesch asked when the downtown closing with AMLI would occur and Mr. Haas said it would be in April. Mr. Koven asked why it kept being delayed. Mr. Haas reported AMLI is investigating adding additional property to the project. If they do this, they would like to be relieved from constructing the parking deck as proposed in the original project. Mr. Haas reported the Project Agreement is still not signed. Discussion followed. Mr. Haas said if the Commission is comfortable with closing on the sale of the property before the project is completely defined, we can get AMLI to do that. “We would require them to build the project as they had agreed and then some provisions that we will be reasonable in approving certain kinds of modifications, such as expanding the project, using surface parking.” Ms. Boldt asked if it was reasonable to put a two week demand on closing. Mr. Haas replied it was reasonable to require them to close before the next meeting. Ms. Boldt reminded him the next meeting was March 14. Mr. Haas will contact them and report at the next meeting how we will have the money before the end of March. Mr. Haas reported June is a realistic date for the Ryland closing for Parcel #6. Ms. Boldt said she would try to get some financial analysis done before the March 14th meeting. Mr. Koven asked why the two expenditures were listed in June (the Huffer purchase and Sherwin Williams). He said, “When Sherwin Williams moves, they’re going to paying us. We’re not paying them to cancel their lease. They’re going to be paying us.” 3 Mr. Haas said the Huffer purchase and how we want to handle Sherwin Williams will be discussed in Executive Session. Mr. Roesch said after the Executive Session we will notify Ms. Mielke where to place the expenditures in the report. Mr. Haas said the reason the Sherwin Williams expenditure appears in June is because that is when it is scheduled to go to trial. Mr. Koven asked why we were wasting money taking them to trial since they are moving anyway. This will be discussed in Executive Session. There was no further discussion about the financial report. Mr. Roesch reminded Commission members that if they had any questions at any time, they could contact Ms. Mielke. Attorney’s Report Kestner’s design is done and we will soon be proceeding to a closing. Mr. Haas: On Huffer and Goodyear what we had decided at the previous meeting was that we would obtain two current appraisals. There wasn’t a specific amount designated to be spent. Mr. Haas has received two proposals (from Michael C. Lady and Terzo & Bologna) for these two appraisals and both are $5,000 for each appraisal. Mr. Haas called Mr. Terzo and asked for a little better price but he declined, pointing out the appraisals are more difficult because of the prior taking of street right-of-way which means that the uses of the property have to be reconsidered in light of the smaller size, and what uses are possible under the zoning and parking requirements. Ms. Boldt asked if Mr. Haas had had a chance to discuss this with Ms. Snyder for her input, but he said he was unable to reach her because she was ill. Mr. Roesch had indicated to Mr. Haas that he had much more complicated appraisals and they were only $3,500 each. Discussion followed at length. Mr. Haas noted if we were going to go to condemnation we would have to make a good faith offer based on two recent appraisals. “In Huffer’s case, I’ve had discussions with his counsel and we have agreed we would get appraisals but not have discussions in advance with the appraisers to try to influence the process up or down. If this was followed, then these appraisals could serve as the basis for negotiating the purchase price. I think the last appraised value was $700,000. Huffer’s counsel was certain these appraisals would come back at $1,200,000. I think that’s doubtful. Mr. Roesch estimated $700,000-$800,000 based on a cap rate.” 4 Mr. Haas recommended the CRC get current appraisals on the property. “They would be for fee title to the real estate and as a condition of acquiring this property, that the Goodyear lease be terminated. If we went to condemnation we would condemn the fee and all other interests. So the plan was if we could have uninfluenced appraisals it might form the basis for narrowing the gap in our negotiations.” Ms Boldt asked if there was a possibility that Goodyear might reopen at their site. Mr. Haas replied, “It’s hard to say what Goodyear’s real interest is there.” He continued, “They have expressed to me that they intend to reopen.” Ms. Boldt said she thought we should pursue other appraisers, hopefully for less than $5,000. Mr. Carter asked Mr. Haas if he could get proposals from other appraisers by March 14th and if that would cause any problems with timing. Mr. Haas said there was no specific timetable set. He suggested we solicit bids and go ahead and accept appraisals at $3500 apiece or less if the proposals are acceptable to Mr. Roesch. So moved/affirmed by Ms. Boldt. Following a second by Mr. Carter the motion was approved by a vote of three to one, with Mr. Koven voting no. Mr. Koven: I don’t think we should be getting any appraisals at all. I think it’s too far off in the distance. These numbers aren’t going to happen like this. We’ll still be messing with this a year from now and then the appraisals are going to be out of date. Mr. Carter: How do you know that to be the case, John? Mr. Koven: History. We don’t need that building out of the way right now anyway. And I’ll guarantee you two years from now it won’t need to be out of the way. I don’t think we need to spend a million two to buy that building today and if Goodyear wants to reopen let ‘em have at it ‘cause they’re not going to be in our way, I bet, within two years. And I think we’ll be spending this all over again and I bet two years from now we’ll still be messing with this. Mr. Koven continued: When I came on this Commission over two years ago, we were dealing with Sherwin Williams. We’re still dealing with Sherwin Williams and all they have is a leasehold. Mr. Roesch: Thanks to your strategy, though, that’s coming to an end. Mr. Koven: I just don’t think these numbers are going to happen like this and I don’t think they’re going to happen on this piece of paper. Mr. Roesch: We’ve approved it. I hope it goes quicker than that. 5 Mr. Haas reported he and Amy met with Jennifer of Jennifer’s Beauty Shop which was relocated as part of the acquisition of the Paragon property. “They have asked for $150,000 in damages and we’ve held firm at $5,000. They’re now down to $35,000. We can discuss at the Executive Session how we want to proceed with that.” Mr. Haas: Next item: when we acquired the Mueller property we agreed to cover some crop damages. Mr. Koven: I want to say something for the newspaper guy over there. There has been several meetings and I know back in October or November I said, “Do we have any more liabilities that we don’t know about that we ought to know about.” The answer was no, everything’s taken care of. And now all of a sudden we’re paying to move Jennifer’s after she’s been moved for a year. And we’ve got a dry cleaners sitting in a building that we’re making no attempt to move out of there. And we’re over there negotiating to buy a million two piece of property that we don’t even need now. And we’ve got one sitting here that’s costing us money. We’re not doing this in a very effective way at all. This is all so happenstance. I don’t even believe this is going on. We need to put our efforts into getting people out of a building, get the building flattened. And that’s what our objective is to do as a redevelopment commission. We’re going to end up with the Kestner property with tenants for the next four or five years and it’s going to cost us a fortune to buy those people out. We shouldn’t even be buying that property. We should buy these properties with the tenants out. We don’t belong in the landlord business, folks. And for us to be messing around with the empty Goodyear building we thought was an issue we were going to take a year ago because the building was going to be empty and now they’re going to reoccupy it, and now we’re going to negotiate them out of a lease. We couldn’t get Sherwin Williams. We’re just totally ineffective here with what we’re doing and now we’re talking about crop damage. I’ve been on this Commission for two years and it’s never come up. Do these people just come up with this stuff out of their back pocket? Mayor Brainard: It was agreed to in the contract with the Mueller property. How much is it, Karl? Mr. Koven: Well, it should be on here [indicating Financial Report]. It’s not on here. Mr. Haas: It’s $650.00. Mr. Koven: It just never stops! Mr. Roesch: Are we aware of anything else? Is anybody aware of anything else? Ms. Boldt: Not to my knowledge. I didn’t know about the crop damage. No one on the Commission remembered anything prior about the crop damage. Mr. Haas will confirm that amount is correct and will put it on the agenda for next meeting. 6 Mr. Haas: The next item is Ryland. I expect we will get it closed before the date on the schedule. The next item: We’ve received a letter of intent from the Hamilton Group for the balance of the property of which Ryland is taking about three quarters. Mr. Haas distributed copies of the letter of intent and continued: Under this letter of intent the Hamilton Group proposes to purchase the property for $200,000 and construct a 9,800 square foot two story building. They have agreed to meet the architectural requirements and they will commit to close by July 27 and complete construction of their building by October, 2002. If this letter of intent is approved, then we’ve agreed that we will negotiate exclusively with them through March 18, 2001. Brief discussion followed. Mr. Haas said when we closed with AMLI we put in place a declaration of covenants which require any changes to come back to the Commission for architectural approval and also require maintaining the property in a good condition. Mr. Carter: What does the term buildable pad mean in this context? Mr. Haas: That means we would provide them with a sort of pad that we’ve been providing for the other projects, like is being provided for AMLI. Mr. Olds: AMLI’s a little different because we’re doing massive earth movement, cutting the high parts out, building the low parts up. On Parcel #6 building a pad doesn’t really exist other than the fact we’re removing the trees where the building and the parking lot is, you come in and by the time you put your subbase in, your drainage fill, your floor, you’ll probably be at the right level. So I don’t see us building a pad for them on that site. Mr. Haas: So it would amount to filling and grading. Mr. Olds: Our position was that they would have to clear also because there may be selected trees they’d want to save. In essence what we’re doing there is providing utilities to the site and making them responsible for the removing of the trees. Discussion continued about soil borings in that area. Mr. Koven: Why have we gotten in the position of providing buildable pads? And why isn’t this just a commercial lot like any other commercial lot somebody would buy and just develop? Mayor Brainard: That went back to the original concept about the public/private partnership, that we would be providing buildable pads. That is reflected in the price we get for the lot. 7 Mr. Carter: Do we have an appraisal on that? Mr. Koven: Of course not. Mr. Carter: Maybe we should. Mayor Brainard: Luci [Snyder] had some words of wisdom on that. Mr. Koven: But $200,000 and then what are we going to do, spend $100,000 to prepare it as a buildable pad? Then the net’s only $100,000. Mr. Carter: I don’t think we would spend that kind of money on that site. Mr. Koven: I understand that but we just spent up to $95,000 more on the AMLI property that we didn’t expect to spend and I’m not going to sign a contract on a $200,000 deal and then go and put another $37,000 in it and we find out there’s a problem there. These are realtors. They’re smart people. Let them do their homework like anyone else would do and if they want to build there they can build there. Mayor Brainard: Karl, does agreeing to this to give them a two week period, obligate us to anything? Mr. Haas: That’s correct. All this letter really obligates us to do is to deal with them in good faith through March 18, exclusively. Mr. Olds: Someone has told them to ask for a buildable site. There’s a difference in a “buildable site” and a “building pad”. Mr. Haas: In the meeting we had with them what was discussed was the possible clearing and grading work. What we do is use the period between now and March 18 to figure out exactly what the work constitutes and how much it would cost. If you approve this letter of intent tonight, there’s no obligation to sell to them for $200,000 and undertake $95,000 worth of work, which I agree would be a bad deal. Mr. Koven: I don’t see any need to sign this. We’re not going to meet again until the 14th. We’re not negotiating with anybody else. Nobody else has expressed an interest in it. So go have at it. You don’t need this signed. Mr. Roesch: We’ve tried to create the perception though that everything in the City Center site is desirable, others potentially would like this site or other sites. Ms. Boldt: By accepting their proposal of $200,000, haven’t we in effect limited ourselves as to what we might expect to receive if we don’t complete with them? Brief discussion followed. 8 Mayor Brainard: What the Commission would be agreeing to is the following: By signing below CRC will confirm that until March 18, 2001, CRC will negotiate in good faith [inaudible]. Mr. Haas: The reason I think, if this is in the ballpark of what’s acceptable to the Commission, there’s little harm in signing this because as you say, John, we really can’t begin negotiating with anyone else anyway until this letter of intent runs out. Mr. Koven: Then why sign it? Mr. Haas: It gives them the assurance that we’re at least interested in moving forward with them so they’re willing to spend the money to do their homework. Ms. Boldt: But we’ve also named a price. That’s my problem. Mr. Koven: You normally do that with an offer to purchase, then you put your contingencies in that. That’s not what this is. Ms. Boldt: Even if this doesn’t end up being the finalized price, we’ve named a price, we’ve set a price. Mr. Carter: They’ve named a price. We haven’t said okay, that we would accept that price. What we’ve said is that we will negotiate with these folks in good faith. We haven’t agreed to take this price. At least I don’t read that here. Mr. Carter continued: Two things: The first is, if we keep stiff arming people that may be interested in these properties, this isn’t going to come to fruition. You’re right, we will be waiting and waiting and waiting… Secondly, I would suspect Karl has spent a fair amount of time talking with these people. If we don’t put some faith in what our representatives do in negotiating with these folks we might as well have them come in front of us at every meeting and we sit and negotiate as a committee. It seems to me that’s maybe not the way we ought to be doing business or if we do business that way it’s going to become harder and harder because no one will have faith in what our representatives have to say as they come out and try to do business with them. Because we will get the reputation in effect of cutting the foundation out from under our representatives on most everything they do when they come back to us. If we want to, as a Commission, do all the negotiation with everybody then we probably need to say that and not have representatives working for us in these capacities. Maybe that’s something we need to discuss. I think if one of our representatives brings an agreement or a proposal or something of that nature back to us and says, “This appears to be something that is prudent.” And I don’t know that you’ve said that at this point in time, but if you feel this is prudent, maybe we ought to put more… 9 Mr. Roesch: I think there are particular problems negotiating with Commissions. It’s difficult, on the one hand, everything has to be approved in public, in open door, yet it’s very, very difficult to negotiate prices on things when it has to be approved publicly because you’re upping the ante every time you lay out a price. I have come to rely on Karl’s experience in working with the downtown [Indianapolis] Redevelopment Commission and some of the techniques that are used there. Correct me if I’m wrong, Karl, but isn’t this one technique to get you to the point where you are negotiating and so forth without actually committing to a price until everything is known about something? Mr. Haas: One of the reasons that the letter of intent is preferred, when working with commissions, by developers is that you can have an extended period of negotiation and approval process. If you submit an offer depending on the cycle of meetings it can be up to thirty days before you get any feedback on that and developers frequently want to know at least what the parameters of the deal will be before they go the expense and trouble of submitting a formal offer. That’s especially true since we wouldn’t accept a formal offer as would normally be submitted because we work with the project agreements which include in addition to the obligation to pay money, an obligation to build something we’ve approved. The experience with developers in working through project agreements is it’s pretty cumbersome, so this is at least a way for the developer to be assured there’s an interest on the part of the Commission in pursuing a deal under the parameters that are laid out in the letter of intent. I think the letter of intent is a good way for the Commission to proceed. It saves not only the developer substantial money but it saves you substantial money because the amount of time it takes me to review that three paragraph letter of intent is minimal compared to the amount of time it would take me to review an offer to purchase and then report to you on that. Especially if the offer is not something you want to pursue. In my position I need to come to the Commission and present these offers to you for your consideration. At least I do when we have something that’s in the ballpark of what’s been discussed. Based on our prior discussions as a Commission what had been discussed was a figure of $250,000 so this is at least within the ballpark of what had been discussed as a target price for this piece of property. I don’t know particularly that I would recommend $200,000 as being the correct amount. I had discussed with the Hamilton Group the amount of $250,000 and I don’t have any reason to think that they wouldn’t be open to some negotiation on price. My recommendation would be to accept the letter of intent contingent upon if $200,000 isn’t the price you think you should receive for this property, that they agree to some increased price. Other than the amount of money that they’re going to pay I think the terms of the letter of intent are sound. Of course, before any project agreement is approved by the Commission we would have all of the specifics ironed out and Les would be able to give you a pretty good estimate of what the cost would be to get the site ready. And I wouldn’t suggest that you approve a contract without knowing what it’s going to cost to complete your obligations. Discussion continued. Mr. Roesch: Are they expecting us to approve this, Karl? 10 Mr. Haas: They are expecting us to have a response. I have not suggested to them that $200,000 would be an acceptable amount. The way to proceed, if $200,000 isn’t the amount, is to authorize me to send back a response to this letter of intent that they can accept at a price that’s approved. Mr. Koven to Mr. Dunlap: Are you aware of the fact, for the purposes of writing an article, that this piece of property was advertised for bids and no bids were received and so now we’re down to negotiating individually… I don’t want it to look like we’re negotiating without the public being involved. Mr. Carter moved the letter of intent be returned with a counter on the price at $250,000 and take the site “as is”. The project agreement will note that we will extend the utilities and that Hamilton Group will have an exclusive on the property running until March 18. Discussion followed about when to require the response to the letter of intent. It was decided to leave it at March 18. Following a second by Ms. Boldt, the motion was unanimously approved. Mr. Haas: Last item on my list is my firm’s engagement letter which we can discuss. (He noted it was sent out in the original packet.) Discussion followed. Mr. Carter moved the CRC accept Mr. Haas’ contract. Following a second by Ms. Boldt, the motion was unanimously approved. Architect’s Report Mr. Olds: Mr. Staehler sent a notice to proceed to the contractor for work on the Kestner site subject to approval of the work schedule. The general contractor has agreed he can meet the deadline as per the specifications with the completion date of May 1. The contract amount that was approved by the CRC was $226,100. In the discussions with the contractor he brought to our attention that his bid was $229,700. That was based on the base bid of $171,000 for the work plus the add alternates. We had noted in the breakdown of his costs it did not come to that amount because of a math error on their part. Mr. Olds continued: We said to the contractor, “At this moment the CRC has authorized $226,100. We have a contract here for that amount of money. Do you want to sign it or do you want to withdraw?” After discussing with his partner he said, “We still think we’re entitled to $3,600 because it was a written bid, however, we will sign the contract for $226,100 requesting only that the CRC consider the additional $3,600.” After the meeting I called Karl and asked for his opinion of the fact that the bid form had a fixed amount of $171,000 for the base bid. Did that override the breakdown of the costs? Karl’s thought was that it probably does override the breakdown of costs and the contractor was truly entitled to an additional $3,600. 11 Mr. Haas: It wasn’t that the contractor was entitled to the $3,600 because you approved at a set amount. It was that the contractor wasn’t obligated to sign the contract and perform. Mr. Olds: Of course, the next highest bidder was $100,000 more so we had no place else to go. So at this point it belongs in the hands of the Redevelopment Commission as to what they want to do. I have the contract here and I can insert either sheet. In response to Ms. Boldt’s question, Mr. Olds said it could be done as a change order indicating it is a clarification of the bid. It was decided this is the way it would be handled. Mr. Olds: An additional element was regarding the document for Nick Kestner as we talked earlier. His drawings are basically done. We’ve asked him (his contractor) to sign off on the documents and then bring the documents for the CRC to sign off as the exhibit to the work to be done that Mr. Kestner has promised. Also, Ron Carter, Nick Kestner and I had a meeting regarding the Rotary plaza and have sat down with some of the ideas they’d like to see incorporated and added to the plaza. We have prepared a black and white sketch of this. Mr. Kestner has not seen this yet. Once we get the basic approval we can cost out these elements and present them to the Rotary Club. Mr. Carter noted this is not generally known yet throughout the Rotary Club and expressed caution that it not be publicized prematurely. Mr. Olds: The next element is regarding Parcel #6, which needs six separate legal descriptions prepared. Two are for the Ryland pieces; the other four legal descriptions consist of the wetlands, the corner piece of property and would include also changes to the right-of-way on 126th Street and changes to the right-of-way on Autumn Drive, reducing the right-of-ways and putting basically more buildable land. It’s not a significant amount but it does make a big difference in the configuration. Plus we’ll have to have a legal description regarding some existing water lines. The anticipated cost is about $250 each. Four of them in our opinion would be the responsibility of CRC and two of them would be the responsibility of Ryland. In response to a question from Mr. Koven, Mr. Olds said the right-of-way along Autumn Drive would be moved back about three or four feet. On City Center Drive, it would be about ten feet. Discussion followed. Mayor Brainard recommended both the CRC and the Board of Public Works sign off on transferring the right-of-way. Mr. Haas stated a vacation needs to be initiated with BPW and then whoever is entitled to the property on the day the vacation becomes effective, the title of the adjoining property succeeds the title to that piece that is dedicated. 12 Further discussion ensued. Ms. Boldt moved the CRC approve $1,000 for four legal descriptions for Parcel #6. Following a second by Mr. Koven, the motion was unanimously approved. Mr. Olds: We have five or six conceptual ideas for City Center that have been developed based on input from various developers and other people who have looked at the site. He will send copies of all of these to the Commission members. Reports from CRC Members Ms. Boldt stated she plans to look at the CRC accounting issues by next meeting. There were no other reports from CRC members. Invoices There were no questions on the invoices. Mr. Carter moved the CRC approve the invoices. Ms. Boldt noted there was a lined out item on the Poindexter invoice. She will check on it but said it could be approved at this time since it was a reduction. Brief discussion followed. She then seconded the motion and it was unanimously approved. Old Business The marketing study and survey Mr. Roesch spoke in favor of getting the study and survey, noting that although he did not like to spend the money on it, he felt it was necessary. “I think we need some direction. Marketing the rest of the land we’re going to sell and for the community to be able to present these proposals.” Mr. Koven asked what was included in a marketing study/survey. Mr. Roesch: We’re looking at a feasibility study, what venues are going to be attracted, how much money that’s going to raise, how much it’s going to cost to operate this facility on an ongoing basis. Mr. Koven: What facility? I’m trying to… Mr. Roesch: A facility, which could be…the original vision, a facility that would house a center for the performing arts, for the philharmonic, and for other performing arts. I’ve heard people talk about things that were more multi use. I’m talking about actually two components, the museum and the center for performing arts, the concepts now. The survey is to see what the people want. These have to go hand in hand. Artec said for the auditorium at IU they found they needed other venues to contribute to the income. 13 Commission members will have some additional work to design questions for the survey along with those conducting the survey. Ms. Boldt: I have to say I agree the time seems right now, but if the proposals that were made are dated, shouldn't we get some kind of update on the cost to do the surveys? Mr. Carter spoke in favor of the overall City Center project, noting this was envisioned four years ago to become the “heart of the city”. “If we make this a viable mixed use project we’re going to need the anchors. Whatever that winds up being, it is one of those things which would be an attraction to build these things around. And to get that accelerated we need a survey to find out a number of things, to find out what this project will be, what will this building house. Mr. Carter listed several questions that would need to be answered. He said he thought it was very appropriate for the CRC to move forward with these studies. Mayor Brainard said that once the projects are defined potential donors might come forward. Mr. Koven: I think it’s ahead of time. I said from the beginning I would be in favor of a performing arts center providing the community wants it. I think a study is necessary to determine the viability and if the community wants it. But as Amy just said, the submission of reports are dated. This survey is going to be dated because I don’t see us building this within the next two years and this community is going to change in the next two years. The questions to be asked would be different perhaps once the annexation is completed and our population increases. Mr. Koven continued, noting that on two properties we advertised there were no bidders. “The commercial development has to come in first. We have to start seeing revenues coming in to pay for this. I would venture to say we don’t have a City Council that’s going to vote for a bond issue in the next two years. I don’t see with the revenue streams that we have and the way we're spending $300,000 at a CRC meeting on expenses how we’re going to pay for or build this thing. I don’t think we should spend $30, 40, 50, or $100,000 to do surveys which are going to be set aside and brought out years from now to see whether they’re still viable. As a CRC member I’ll be the first one to vote to construct this thing when it becomes appropriate to do it, but this is not going to be the anchor building in the City Center project. It’s just not feasible.” Mr. Roesch: I hear what you’re saying and I’ve thought and thought about it, but I still get back to the focus, we have to have something… Mr. Koven: The focus is City Center. The focus is the retail development and the buildings that are in the center of this. That’s what makes this thing viable. The performing arts center does not make this viable. That’s an amenity that you hold out there and you make a commitment that if everything else goes along that’s something we’re going to build here. You don’t do it the other way around. 14 Mr. Roesch: From a marketing standpoint, that’s what people are building around. Conceptually, that’s what we’re showing them, from the time we made the first council presentation. That’s why I think we need to be more direct about that even if it’s ten years. We need to focus on that information. Right now we have some very nice pictures and that’s all we have. They’re concepts. We haven’t put any numbers to them and we’re reserving parcels for them. I don’t know how long it will take either. Obviously, economically a lot of other things have to happen. Mr. Carter: I can tell you also there’s a person who’s already come forward to me and it’s that person’s feeling that dollars for this type of thing could be raised from the private sector. Whether that is an exaggerated feeling on that person’s part, I don’t know. But I can tell you that person has been successful in getting a number of things done in the community. I believe if we always push things off, the time’s not right, this is wrong, that’s wrong, we can’t do it, we shouldn’t do it, we never will do it. Mr. Carter used the Monon Trail concept as an example of how important it is to have a product in hand for the people to get excited about, that people can buy into. “If you don’t the chance is very likely that you won’t get that project off the ground. In order for us to move forward in the community, we’ve got to look at these things in a positive light.” Ms. Boldt wanted the CRC to contact the surveyors and get updated cost proposals. Discussion followed. The motion made by Ms. Boldt was to get the proposals “recast” [determine if the proposals presented are still the way the surveys should be done and also whether the cost estimate remained the same] and bring them back at the April 11 meeting. Mr. Carter seconded the motion. The motion was approved with three in favor, Mr. Koven opposed. Mayor Brainard will let Mr. Engelking know so he can contact the surveyors. Mr. Koven expressed a concern that there should be no charge for updating the proposals. Mr. Roesch asked Mayor Brainard to also convey this to the director. CSO Contract Mr. Koven moved the CRC approve the CSO contract. Following a second by Ms. Boldt, the motion was unanimously approved. New Business Mr. Roesch: We have before us a Declaratory Resolution for Merchants Pointe project for a TIF that would be approximately $800,000 for road work basically. This needs to be done before March to establish the tax base to capture the TIF. The vendors have not been selected for this project. Mr. Roesch recommended Sue Beasley from McHale, Cook and Welch for legal work, Wabash Scientific, Michael Shaver for the economic development study, and H. J. 15 Umbaugh, Loren Matthes as financial advisor. Mr. Price was present representing McHale, Cook and Welch at tonight’s meeting in Ms. Beasley’s absence. Mr. Price announced that the developer needs to have the Declaratory Resolution by March 15 and that the one before the CRC was for study only at this time. It was decided that the Declaratory Resolution in its final form will be put on the March 14 meeting agenda. Mr. Koven moved the CRC accept the vendors as recommended by Mr. Roesch. Following a second by Ms. Boldt, the motion was unanimously approved. Request for Leases of City Center property Mr. Roesch noted the CRC has had a lot of requests for short term leases. It was decided there will be no further leases of CRC property because of the potential liability and the cost involved in the paperwork. Ms. Mielke will make sure the Director is aware of this decision. Adjournment Ms. Boldt moved the meeting be adjourned. Following a second by Mr. Carter the motion was unanimously approved and the meeting was adjourned.