Yeah, it just won’t go away . . . it’s at the Council meeting Tuesday, UDC Wednesday, going back to Landmarks soon, and of course, the Joint Review Board on the 29th. And the management agreement still has to be approved by Plan Commission and Council.
TIF PLAN
The Council will once again be discussing their “suboptimal” choices for the TID district. Major issues remain about this TIF district in that:
– There is $58M of property in the James Madison Park area that the James Madison Park Neighborhood Association doesn’t want included, there are no public improvements for the area and it will just encourage more tear downs and large development in an area that is planned for preservation.
– The Mansion Hill area that WANTS to be included in the TIF district, the area that was promised to benefit from the Edgewater development and was promised help with historic preservation is NOT included in the district.
– There are continued serious concerns about the TIF policy violations including, as stated by Mike Verveer at the Board of Estimates meeting: there is no equity kicker, no equity participation, it doesn’t meet the 50% rule, it is not self supporting and there is no personal guarantee in two respects.
– There are serious questions about not including the condos in the calculations for “but for”. While they might be following city policy by not including them (tho I don’t think the interpretation is as intended) they still have to include it in the but for calculation for state purposes, and they are not.
– There are serious issues about past projections about hotel revenues and taxes. John Jacobs did some great research that Kristin Czubkowski reports on. This is worth reading:
The resolution from 1998 projected tax revenue from the hotel of $536,422 in 2002, increasing to $682,479 in 2009. In reality, the Hilton paid $434,237 in 2002 and $421,899 in 2009, and most recently saw its assessed value drop from $20.4 million in 2009 to $18.8 million for 2010
– There are serious issues about the viability of more hotels in this market. Plus, again, from Kristin’s article:
After the Edgewater Hotel’s value was calculated based on 70 percent occupancy and a $200 average daily rate, a group of local hoteliers even went so far as to commission a study of the local hotel scene, which found no hotels with average daily rates near $200 as well as occupancy rates that had dropped from a high of 69 percent in 2008 to 53 percent in 2009.
UDC ON WEDNESDAY
Here’s the new materials . . . and of course, there will probably be new materials handed out at the last minute at the meeting. This document is 288 pages . . . so be careful when opening, it might crash your computer (64.23MB).
Changes they say they made are:
– Langdon entrance of the new building redesigned with smaller canopies
– Lakefront elevation further developed
– Upper floors of the new building “strengthened”
– More meeting space added, less storage, more circulation on level 4.
– They now have details of the rooftop garden
– Moved some of the program around in the building
Other information:
– Lighting (more than half the packet is way too much detail about the lighting)
– Look on page 114, once you get past all the lighting details, to see what they are now saying it will look like from Langdon/Wisconsin, it looks a little different than previous photos . . .
– Page 115 looks back towards the capital
JOINT REVIEW BOARD ON THE 29th
Lucy Mathiak has been talking about an audit by the state of the numbers . . . that could be interesting!
LANDMARKS
This item is on their agenda.
Upcoming Issues: Consideration of Certificate of Appropriateness for the renovation of the exterior of the original 1946 Edgewater Hotel building, Edgewater Redevelopment – 666 Wisconsin Avenue – Mansion Hill Local Historic District.
WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE MANAGEMENT AGREEMENT FOR PLAZA?
Haven’t seen it yet. It has to be approved by the Plan Commission and the Council.
COUGH IT UP, LET US SEE THE LABOR AGREEMENT
My attempts to get a copy of it after the article in the State Journal went no where . . . I emailed Bob Dunn on the 14th asking for a copy of it or the materials they presented at the press conference. All I got was a smart ass response. I don’t think any of the reporters saw the actual agreement. I followed up 3 days ago with him and two of his staff, and no response. I know they read their emails on their crackberries and had to have seen it by now, but no response. I suspect they don’t want me to have it for a reason.
