Annoying Meeting on 700 & 800 Blocks of E. Washington

This blog post is going to be annoying, especially the end, so not only was the meeting annoying, but prepare to be annoyed with me! And the local media! 🙂 Ok, had to add bk comments, cuz I can’t help myself.

WELCOMING REMARKS, INTROS
Aaron Olver, the Director of Planning and Community and Economic Development started off the meeting by introducing staff, Mayor and alders. At the time he introduced Dana Warren (Real Estate), Jim Bower (consultant), Don Marx (Real Estate), Matt Mikolajewski (Office of Business Resources), Peggy Yessa (Office of Business Resources) and Rob Gothchalk (consultant), but more staff filtered in or were missed. I saw Natalie Erdman (CDA) and Bill Fruhling (Planning) as well, maybe a few more.

There were about 75 people there, I think mostly business community folks and not neighbors, but I’m not entirely sure, as this impacts both sides of the avenue, but I only recognized maybe 20 – 25 neighbors. I think there were many staff from the development teams there. And maybe some of their competitors. i.e. More business attire than you would usually see at a meeting on the near east side of Madison.

Olver explained that after some introductions, we are going to get a city overview, then there would be developer presentation, questions and informal dialog. He says we are in the early process, we are in the pre-development mode, they might not have all the answers, and they want to hear our comments. There are orange sheets to fill out comments and questions. So, this is my beef with the “early in the process” comments they keep making. Yes, we are in the early process of the development project. But they entirely cut the community out of the process to decide who got the rights to develop the properties. They have already decided which of the 3 (of 7) proposals can be considered, so that when they introduce the resolution to sell the properties to the “winners”, its already a done deal. Then the public can tinker with the proposals that have been pre-approved. They have made the major decisions. We aren’t going to change a proposal from a 1 story parking lot taking up half the development to something more dense. We aren’t going to change a 3 story building to a 8 story building as envisioned. And they have cut us out of the decisions about if these proposals fit with our neighborhood plans. Because once these are the only proposals on the table, the pressure will increase to just approve them so we don’t have to start over. There are lots of details of these proposals – TIF, purchase prices, etc that impact the taxpayers, that won’t be relevant once we get to the development process, and I don’t hear those issues being talked about or being presented. See more about the original proposals and my comments on the process in previous posts.

Mayor Paul Soglin made some opening remarks. Makes some jokes/light-hearted comments about the chairs in the room. (Probably trying to make sure people know he’s not always grumpy!) His guess is whatever recommendation comes from the process he will embrace and support, his input is at the beginning and here is some of the things he thinks is critical. We are at the point where discussion is taking place long before the bulldozers arrive, that is quite refreshing, there will be extensive public discussion about end result. He has never seen a project or development be successful unless there is good land use, transportation and economics, which includes taxation and private feasibility. Another element is that there will be competing values here, not just differences in individuals and teams, but internal conflicts as well, we may need to make compromises. He already recognizes that on the question of height as a citizen when BUILD report came out he was excited to see we embraced some rather tall buildings by Madison’s standards and density was recognized as an asset to development in corridor, but difficult economic times plus the fact we are doing the development now instead of place development now instead of 5 to 10 years from now may make us make some accommodations in regards to that. BAH HA HA HA HA HA HA – ok, at the time we were doing those heights in the corridor, some folks asked me about them, and I said “they’ll never get built” – not economically feasible. I think I’m still right, bad economic times or not. But, we’ll see, I’m kinda still hoping I’m wrong, but if we ever build those heights, either the city is going to have to kick out some serious cash, or there is a company with a ton of money to put into it. I bet we don’t see those heights in the next 100 years. The other issue is design and architecture, the issue is which one of us gets to impose our tastes on the architects – it should be all of us, and none of us. He thinks we should set design standards, maybe some building materials restrictions for those materials that would not be compatible, but hopes architects can work freely in terms of design and we can look back hundreds of years from now and think it was brilliant. Sure, I agree, lets set some standards and make the architects live up to them. You know the problem is that then they will come in and that they need flexibility. 🙂 He wants good land use, space and design and he wants them to says we didn’t settle for mediocrity, that’s all easy, let’s have a good time, thank you for coming!

Bridget Manaiaci says her thank yous, says she is looking for feedback on proposals we have, please use the forms, don’t hold back. Let me know what like and don’t like. You will get more of a look at this and there will be a lot of discussion about values we want moving forward right now given the economy as it compares to the plans we all worked hard on. RED FLAG: These proposals don’t fit with our plans!

Marsha Rummel says this is not the start of process, she been planning for the corridor since the early otts (sp?), two things they have been planning for that brought us here today are central park and their work with the consultants. They helped us and some of property owners look at strengths and weaknesses. And of course land banking literally brought us here today, the city took a risk, they did something some people don’t like, they bought land, but we can see the benefits. She hopes we will tell her what we think, she struggled with tradeoffs RED FLAG! What were those tradeoffs that the committee made? Tell us more!. She says if you live in the Marquette Neighborhood or Tenney Laphap, it is a little disappointing, but we will start where we are at and move forward and develop something that will be a positive. That last sentence sounded a little more hopeful when she said it, but looks terrible in writing. She basically just said, we are not getting what we want.

Satya Rhodes-Conway says Marsha Rummel looked back, but she’d like to look forward. This is the beginning of the process, we are hoping to hear from you tonight, and she thinks she speaks for all of them, their doors, or at least electronic doors are open. If you think of something she would be happy to hear it going forward, each of the proposals will have to go through land use process, there will be multiple opportunities to engage in the process and offer comment, it’s the beginning, not the last chance for process, she hopes you will stay engaged, she will continue to depend on that, she is interested in what have to say and reactions to proposals.

Man, I really wish those meetings had been open meetings and that we could hear what the alders were thinking about the tradeoffs they were making. And I really wish someone from the neighborhoods had been able to attend those meetings, just like business community reps were allowed to do. The alders were sworn to secrecy and at least the two I know best kept their lips sealed! Meanwhile, the business community and others were all talking about this. I think we really lost out by having the benefit of hearing their thoughts about the tradeoffs as it was happening. I think we might be at a different point now. Rummel is clearly somewhat disappointed and thinks we will be as well . . . I consider that not good.

OVERVIEW
Aaron Olver did an overview of the Capitol East area and goals. He said this is the Capitol East Center area and there are issues with the water table, remediation and parking. He says rents are also problematic. The site is large and most developers can’t take on the whole site. He also talks about the BUILD Plan and the TIF District. Sorry, that is a little brief, but its all old news, I’ll try to throw in some links if I have time. He says that we did land banking because the seller wanted to sell all 8 acres at the same time but developers couldn’t afford to take the risk. They needed to do it in a phased way. This was a “classic case of market failure”. Oh man, this comment is deserving of a full on rant that is an entire blog post! Sure the government should just stay out of business’ way, let the market decide, yadda, yadda, yadda. But when they want TIF and CDA bonds, and land banking to help them out – well, then they are government’s buddies! I could go on, but I’ll spare you . . . . . He says the city bought the land to break it into pieces (the direct opposite of the goals of land banking, I can’t help but point out!) and to invest in the area, they wanted it open to all parties interested and to not prejudge who might be a good fit so they issued and RFP (Request For Proposals). That statement drive me a little nuts, because the fact that they had to make that statement means that they have been doing their work differently, perhaps prejudging and hand picking projects!? I dunno, but clearly, they think doing an RFP is a big deal, when in fact, it should be standard operating procedure. They didn’t know if get any proposals or they would be flooded with them. This was their first step to test the market. They did anticipate that the pieces might conflict or overlap. They had to work this like a jigsaw puzzle to figure out what to recommend. The committee looked at them to review for feasibility, experience, team membership, if it was compatible with the BUILD, what economic impact it would have (this is the part the public was left out of) but they were not doing land use decisions, architecture, that is all going to happen in “traditional way”. (This is the part they will let us have input on. This is just a recommendation about who to give an option to.

Oooops, We have different proposals to show you tonight
Aaron says there were 6 excellent proposals. (and a 7th they won’t let us see for some reason, they rejected that proposal. He says what you saw on-line are different than the three that they chose that will be presented tonight. He runs through each of the proposals and what is different.

RIFKIN – Will not be substantially different.

ALE ASYLUM – We love them, we want them here, but they opted to look at bigger sites, they no longer want to be on East Washington, so that proposal is withdrawn, so they asked Rifkin to work on that site.

GEBHARDT – They had single proposal for 800 north, during process Hovde withdrew because they wanted to focus on the Mautz paint site. Gephardt was also interested in another site, they believe block be developed in planned way for 800, no unintended consequences, they wanted to take advantage of the East Washington frontage and full block development, they moved Gephardt to the 700 block.

ULI had a slightly different proposal, after Hovde dropped out. They were worried there was no master developer for whole block, ULI has proposed something for all three sites. ULI started thinking about just the 800 block and came up with an innovative way to phase and get it done. They have a hybrid, or evolution of what we saw on line, you will see a new proposal from them that shifted significantly.

Next Steps
Tonight they will “unveil” the proposals “fully and publicly” and garner feedback, it is “early in process”, they may not be able to answer all your questions. He reminds people about the yellow sheets and says if you want the newsletter to check the box and give them your email.

He says that land use and TIF will be decided in the future. With a hammer to our heads, because if we don’t like the TIF proposal or the land use they have chosen, then what?

They will advance recommendation to work with these three developers or a subset of them and give them option to purchase. That will allow a period of time to explore feasibility, line up tenants, financing, land use approval, work with neighborhoods, Urban Design Commission, etc. This is “early in the process”, as developers explore projects, details will evolve.

PRESENTATIONS, COMMENTS, QUESTIONS, INFORMAL DISCUSSION
I was there for an hour, I got to see the Rifkin proposal, which did not change. Then had to leave. They had an hour to do two more presentations, take questions and get feedback and they made it clear in the beginning of the meeting that they had a hard deadline to be out by 8pm.  I have no idea what happened, yet.

THIS IS THE FRUSTRATING PART!
I’m a volunteer, not getting paid, and had something else to do, so I left. When I left, there was no media there that I saw. I saw no tv cameras, or radio folks. Didn’t recognize any print media there. I asked the staff, they didn’t think anyone had shown up either, despite the fact that they tried to reach out to them. I checked on line and saw no coverage of the meeting. I’m hoping one of the neighbors took some notes and reports back. I’m guessing city staff didn’t take notes or minutes that will be shared with the public.

A bit of an aside. Someone who was late came up to me and asked where the hand outs were. I told this person there were none. Then informed that person that the proposals on line are different than what they are presenting tonight. They asked me “why do they do that” . . . my answer was a dumb look on my face and probably rude comment, to which the person replied “never mind, I know WHY they do it this way.” We smiled at each other and understood.

My comments on my sheet as I left said:

If they had new proposals why weren’t they available? When will they be available? More secrecy? This isn’t an open process – like most things OBR does. Disadvantages those who don’t have time for meetings – press won’t cover

See blog for more comments! 🙂