How Much is the Redevelopment of East Washington Going to Cost Us?

So far, here’s what has been approved or on the table. I may have missed something, but here is what it is so far.

$3.4M in TIF
For the Constellation project – 700 E Washington (north side)

$300,000 Sustainability Center Consultant
Authorizing the Director of the Department of Planning & Community & Economic Development to issue a Request for Proposals (“RFP”) for consultant services to hire a private-sector work team to partner with City staff on the preparation of a Madison Sustainability Commerce Center Feasibility Study (“Study”), and authorizing a City staff team to select the work team consultant (s) to prepare said Study.

$175,000 for Consultants
You can read about what they should be doing in 2012 here. Oddly enough they are responsible for the contract negotiations for the Don Miller lot that is a mess and for “Support planning/implementation efforts for Madison Sustainability Commerce Center (MSCC) (MSCC Team, The Bower Group, EDD).” which we are now paying another party to do.

$550,000 to fix the median and traffic signals at Livingston and E Washington
I never understood why it was so important to people to have the median not allow people to turn onto Livingston, but there was some issue or problem that people thought was important, but now that is being undone.

$235,150 in consulting services for 2011
I wonder how many staff people we could have hired for that amount of money.

More consulting, $201,000 for consulting for 2010
This is an amendment to a previous contract, so there is more.

$175,000 in 2009
The contract wasn’t entered into until September and yes, I was a sponsor on this one, reluctantly – hoping that it was a one time deal.

1 Million Dollars in Consulting
– $786,150. in consulting fees to Vandewalle and Associates, Bower Group and Heibing Group has been over 3/4 of a million dollars.
– $300,000 in consultants for the sustainability center.

$4M in TIF that we know of so far . . .
– $550,000 to make changes to E Washington Ave.
– $3.4M for the Constellation project.

We’ve also had other costs to purchase the Don Miller properties, but we should recoup those. We have gotten some grants for the area, but those seem to go straight to the developers. I’m guessing we put some other money in on Breese Stevens and the old Marquip building. Plus the BUILD planning process and all the staff time spent on that and the Urban Design District Ordinance development (which was promptly ignored).

How much more are we going to have to pay for the ULI project or Metcalfe, and the Rifkin (or other) project across the street. And whatever goes in on the Mautz Paint Site. And other projects in the area?

Sure, the investment will be worth it if it all works out, but I’m sensing a real lack of vision about the city’s role here and an bottomless budget. I’d really like to see us hire city staff to work on this if the numbers are going to continue to add up like this and this will drag on for years. And I’d like to see an overall plan for the area that says what we think we will invest and what we expect it to yield and a projection about when the consulting fees are going to end. Seems like we just keeping handing over money out of desperation and because it is easy, instead of some thoughtfulness.

p.s. Could you imagine us spending $1M on consulting fees for solving poverty and figuring out the best way to deal with the “homelessness problem”. How about some TIF money for a day shelter?