City Plans to Buy MORE Downtown Land

At what point do we exceed our capacity to get things done? And do they have a plan that is not quite so apparent to the rest of us?

And, since this is the state selling us the Brayton parking lot (flat lot on E Washington behind the GEF buildings between S Butler and S Hancock), will Walker change all that?

Here’s an explanation:

The City has been trying to purchase the State’s portion of the Brayton Lot parcel for over 5 years. It was included in the approved 2007 Parking Utility Capital Budget for $2M. While this purchase approval was never withdrawn the Comptroller’s office has recommended that we re-authorize this purchase approval at the newly appraised lower dollar level of $1,380,000 plus $7,000 in miscellaneous costs. Funds are available from Parking Reserves. This purchase will not impact the tax levy.

This purchase is in line with the 1995 First Settlement Neighborhood Master Plan and the 2001 Planning Committee’s design and development framework for the Brayton Lot Block. The purpose of this purchase is two-fold:
· Provide a better development platform for future development of that block
· Provide better parking opportunities for parkers in that quadrant of the city

It is more difficult and expensive to develop an “L” shaped parcel from a parking or a commercial development perspective. Full control over the entire block will result in a lower development cost/SF and lower costs to the City and future development projects. The future development will likely include retail, commercial and residential properties plus a public parking component.

“L” shaped parking facilities produce dead ends in traffic aisles and reduce the structures customer convenience. The Parking Utility’s future plans for this parcel include a one-level below-grade parking structure for the general public. Since one-level below-grade large footprint parking structures are very efficient to build I would expect the cost/stall to be around $17K/stall at today’s prices, making it competitive from a cost perspective to above-grade parking facilities. Development partners may wish to include additional parking to fit their tenants needs.

The State has a legitimate concern over the parking availability with their share-ride vans. They currently have 29 and need the capacity to expand this up to 30 vehicles. They currently park the 29 vans in their portion of the Brayton Lot. The Parking Utility and the State of Wisconsin have agreed that the City Parking Utility will provide up to 30 parking stalls appropriate to van vehicles in downtown City parking facilities as long as the State share-ride program exists. The State lease rate of these stalls will be locked into the then-current Resident Monthly parking rate of that facility. Assuming the State leases 29 stalls this would generate over $42K in revenue the first year assuming all vans continue to park in the Brayton Lot. The other 45 stalls made available by this purchase would be leased out at the currently hourly rate of $1.35/hour. Assuming an 8 hour occupancy, 5 days per week, this could generate an additional $126K annually in revenue. These revenues are sufficient to at least break even on the 74 additional spaces until the parcel is developed and will not adversely impact the Parking Utility’s balance sheet.

The Mayor and Aldrs Rummel (Brayton Lot district) and Schmidt are co-sponsoring this resolution. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you’d like more information.

Here’s the resolution. They’re buying it for $1,380,000.00. This will be introduced on Tuesday.