Uncouncilman Price abstains as Plan Commission overwhelmingly recommends riverfront redevelopment plan.

Considering the fact that the riverfront redevelopment plan described below has been considered by both the redevelopment and plan commissions, and that council persons are assigned to sit on both, isn't it the case that council president Dan Coffey's twaddling about not being informed of it is disingenuous even by his colossal standards of dishonesty?

At any rate, attendee Dan Chandler left the following comment on yesterday's post, "Plan Commission considers the riverfront redvelopment masterplan tonight," and it seems the ideal response to my request for readers to provide coverage of a meeting I couldn't attend. The Wet Knob, was good, though.

Tonight was just a vote by planning commission to recommend to council. This is a land use plan. It's only a tweaking of the existing comprehensive plan with regard to an area along the levee. It is not, nor would be an affirmative vote by the council, be authorization to fund a parking garage/plaza that is envisioned as a part of the plan. The financing needed to implement the plan, except as noted below, was not discussed tonight.

There were maybe 70 people in the audience. Architect Larry Timperman, who developed the land use plan, gave a brief description. Next, Jack Bobo’s architect Mose Putney described the $30M Bobo project. Mose noted that they had a potential tenant interested in taking 80,000 square feet.

In all, there were maybe 5 speakers, each of whom only took a few minutes. Mike Kopp spoke, noting that if he had 10,000 square feet of leasable space, a woman’s apparel retailer from Chicago would move in tomorrow, but that space currently is not available. If these developments took place, that space would be available. Carl Malysz told the commission that the plan has the Mayor’s full support.

There were only a couple questions from the commission. One member asked for clarification on the “high rise” portion of the plan. Steve Price asked Carl if this was the time to discuss costs. Carl estimated the public costs of the parking garage roughly at $12M (800 parking spaced at $15,000/ea.). He noted that if Bobo’s project and the New Horizons project both went in, there would be $70M in direct private investment from those two projects alone. How the $12M would be financed was not discussed (TIF, etc.). Price did not ask a follow-up question.

At one point, a speaker asked for a show of hands of those in favor of the project and virtually everyone in the audience raised his or her hand. No one spoke in opposition to the plan.

The commission voted in favor of recommending the plan to the common council. All votes were in favor, except for Steve Price who abstained. No one voted against.

The commission moved to the next topic and virtually the entire audience exited the meeting.