Are we about to see "Mainland: The Sequel" at the Coyle property on I-Spring Street in New Albany?

The Green Mouse has been listening to an array of hot rumors concerning the redevelopment potential of the Coyle property, located adjacent to I-Spring Street, which is being listed by Mike Kopp.

As we learned on Tuesday morning, insofar as the city's economic development squad has a pattern for downtown economic piecemealing in the ongoing absence of an actual, coherent plan, it is to refrain from any substantive action until prompted by realtors like Kopp , at which point it is permissible to consider helpful infrastructure improvements, i.e., replacing sidewalks not repaired since the Eisenhower administration.

In short, we've been told on more than one occasion that pro-activity in downtown economic development simply is not possible because such a tool kit does not exist -- and, by obvious extension, city officials do not possess sufficient creative instincts (or passion) to assemble one.

However, when it comes to the Coyle ground, as with the infamous Mainland condo project debacle of previous years, the rumor mill suggests that the city is perfectly willing to ante up so long as the asker is not an independent local business.

Sounds like a One Southern Indiana memo, doesn't it?

The Green Mouse believes the Urban Enterprise Association (forcibly annexed by the Gahan administration to serve as handy ATM, and controlled by Mr. Duggins) will be asked to fund a feasibility study for "upscale" housing infill on the property, as undertaken by a big-time Indianapolis development firm.

This may seem innocuous, but almost certainly it is the prelude to the city proposing to further subsidize this company to the tune of considerably more than just chump change.

Did I mention that the current administration has no downtown economic development plan?

It was to have happened with Mainland in the form of a $15 million parking garage, and there's been no evidence of outside-the-box thinking since that ship ingloriously sank of its own hubris.

"Careerists" like Maalox may be gone, but the 1Si-indoctrinated team in place at present isn't exactly populated by people who've learned from different teachers than the time-servers who preceded them.

We need to pay very close attention to what happens next. First things first: Two way streets, now, as were promised by Jeff Gahan in 2011. Only then do we consider the next in a probable series of Mainlandings.

If City Hall elects to shovel buckets of cash to an Indianapolis company to do what Matt Chalfant is doing entirely on his own ... if there's no downtown economic development plan, and no completed streets .. then City Hall quite obviously does not deserve to be elected again, and should not be elected again.

Drinking Progressively: Let's make it Tuesday evenings, beginning on November 25.

Bail, Caesar: Bob surveys game-changers in this golden oldie quote.

Business First (January 21, 2011) delivers the goods with this hilarious CeeSaw moment, as the councilman stresses that it is a far better idea for the city to build a $15 million parking garage and give it to a penniless investor without a track record than using a fraction of this amount to empower upstairs occupancy in existing downtown buildings, including his own, under the faux reasoning that that high-dollar condo inhabitants might buy more diamonds than scruffy hipsters.

Whatever happened to Mainland Properties, anyway? By the time Riverview Towers breathed its last, the ill-fated concept had been altered to exclude the very condos erotically inspiring Caesar. Meanwhile, the same city scrambling to give away parking garage money in this instance as yet has no plan to support economic development downtown, one benefitting the businesses already here, which have yet to receive $15 of love, much less $15 million.

Is this place effed up, or what?

Level of council support uncertain

The level of support for the proposal from the nine-member New Albany City Council is difficult to gauge.

Councilman Robert Caesar, a downtown New Albany business owner, is firmly behind the plan, but he thinks support for the venture is mixed among the council members.

It will be a tough sell for some, he said, but he believes there could be five or six votes in favor of funding the garage.

“I think this will be a great project for the city of New Albany,” he said. “It’s going to give us, for the first time, a gathering point for the city,” similar to the Belvedere on Louisville’s waterfront. Caesar, who owns Endris Jewelers, said the condo aspect of the project, in particular, is exciting to him.

“If we could ever get living spaces down here, that is a game-changer that is unbelievable.”

Random 2013 Platform Goals 2: Can we agree on a riverfront plan, please?

For the second installment of Random 2013 Platform Goals, we consider the current state of affairs on New Albany's downtown riverfront.

Apart from the Greenway, the YMCA (Scribner Place, Phase Only) and the new Amphitheater roof, very little has changed there in the eight years this blog has been functioning.

Today's news story (below) helps to bring the city's ongoing riverfront conceptual vacuum into sharper focus. It's tempting to roll one's eyes at another big-time development group refusing to show us the money, but at the same time, New Albany Horizons has a point of sorts.

Indeed, the planet stopped spinning for two (three?) years as we rushed to gift Mainland Properties with various keys to the city as pertains to its ever-mutable (and apparently, entirely unfunded) River View plans. Now the olive branch is withdrawn, and Horizons gets its deferred turn to convince someone/anyone there's any there, there. A bank account might be a nice first step.

To me, it reveals an even larger, perhaps congenital problem. There are numerous development plans on file, all of them addressing the riverfront's future. But there is no row-in-one-direction cohesion as to what might actually be expected to happen.

The anarchy is exacerbated by the usual small-pond turf wars. Successive mayoral administrations say one thing, councils do another, and the redevelopment commission something else again. More importantly, since the last two riverfront development plans minted by for-profit, non-governmental bodies (Mainland's and Horizons) called for condos, it might behoove us to check with the city of New Albany's overall housing master plan.

Well, is there one? If so, what's it have to say? If not, shouldn't there be a plan, or is our only strategy to lay in stocks of lubricant whenever private "partners" come calling?

And maybe is would be constructive to exercise leadership on these points -- although a return to the England administration's top-down, crony-enrichment bludgeoning is not welcomed.

Developer questions city’s aim for New Albany's riverfront corridor; New Albany Horizons granted extension on payment for property, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Developers who once proposed a $30 million project in downtown New Albany want to know the city’s vision for the riverfront area before proceeding with any investments.

On Tuesday, the New Albany Redevelopment Commission extended the due date on a mortgage note for six parcels of public property off Bank Street owed by the group New Albany Horizons LLC. In 2008, the commission agreed to sell the parcels to the group for $107,500, with final payment due by the end of this year. So far, the group has only paid property taxes on the lots.

New Albany Horizons already owns land around the public property, and eyed the parcels as part of its plan to construct residential, commercial and office space near the corridor of Bank and Main Streets.

Carl Holliday — a partner in New Albany Horizons — told the redevelopment commission Tuesday the group hasn’t started the project because of uncertainty over what will be developed around the property.

Mainland Properties circles back, trickles off, and responds to Redevelopment.

Anita Massey, project manager of the moribund River View development, is the originator of the infamous "trickle back" reference.

June 14, 2011: Trickling back: It's about gravy, not gravity.

Earlier this week, New Albany's Redevelopment Commission finally decided that "trickling forward" wasn't enough, and besides, it had become weary that the money kept not getting shown.

July 10, 2012: New Albany Redevelopment Commission rescinds agreement over River View property

Trickle Platz wasn't thrilling us, either. But you already knew that.

July 12, 2012: ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

Here Massey "reaches out" to Redevelopment (and the public) in a piece wisely deemed by the newspaper as "opinion."

NEW ALBANY — Mainland Properties responds to recent NARC decision

... Mainland Properties understands that Mr. (Adam) Dickey may have questions about the development, and we invite him to meet with us to explain our progress. If he has questions about the draft option, we encourage him to work with the NARC attorney to address his concerns. Of course, we regret that Mainland Properties was denied the opportunity to speak on our behalf at the Tuesday meeting, as we very well may have been able to avoid an outcome that belittles our efforts over the years and undermines public confidence in the redevelopment approval system.

Fortunately, given the ease with which these issues can be addressed, we see no need to issue a new RFP, and encourage NARC members to reconsider their position at the next meeting. It could hardly be in the interests of the City of New Albany and its citizens to recommence a process that is likely to take years to reach fruition when a “shovel ready” project sits at their doorstep. Such a capricious decision would send a terrible message to businesses contemplating investing in the community.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

ON THE AVENUES: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

Yesterday, the Redevelopment Commission voted to rescind a River View option extension for Mainland Properties, and in light of this, I believe this column bears repeating. It originally was published here on January 23, 2012.

---

At a lazily advertised work session last Thursday evening, New Albany’s city council learned that the River View waterfront development project would no longer be coming to town as originally conceived.

That is, if it comes to town at all.

I couldn’t have been the only onlooker catching an unmistakable whiff of airborne desperation, because far from making the River View dream more palpable by openly addressing past concerns and doing pleasant touch-up work to the architectural renderings, Mainland Properties’ most recent presentation instead revealed a slew of major fundamental alterations.

These changes muddy the project’s conceptual basis, and cry out for intensified scrutiny on the part of city officials, who must yet toss a parking garage into the collection plate before the first pitch is thrown.

Mainland has now gone on record, implicitly or explicitly, as conceding virtually every objection previously voiced about River View. By doing so, it has rendered null and void the alleged toxicity of previous questioners, an obfuscation used to justify the England administration’s persistent inability to be truthful in answering queries about the development.

Improbably, the latest, revised River View build-out raises even more questions than the original version, although predictably, the city council chose to ask none of them at Thursday’s work session. I choose to believe that council members were stupefied by sheer incredulity in the face of the fantasies they were being asked to embrace, and I trust they will recover their senses when River View returns to their inboxes.

---

Critically, the revised three-phase plan for River View 2.0 utterly contradicts Jack Bobo’s oft-stated goal for his project, as stressed time and again from inception: It will enable a bold, game-changing caste of condominium owners in downtown New Albany, whose very presence will “trickle back” myriad benefits to the remainder of the community.

Doubtful in the best of times, but for the sake of argument, I’ll temporarily accept that up-market condominium occupants are capable of single-handedly shifting downtown paradigms, and ask this question:

Given the altered three-phase development plan, what is the chance of these transformational condos ever being built?

In answering, let’s first dispense with the fallacious number “three” in reference to River View’s supposedly escalating phases, each one proceeding from the presumed success of the one before.

Of course, there is a fourth phase, actually the very first phase, and without it, not one other domino can so much as consider falling into place: The city of New Albany’s essential “TIF Tithe” for the construction of a 500-unit parking garage.

Both literally and figuratively, River View is to be built atop this commitment.

We must soberly recognize that no matter the continued expediency of River View’s evolution, the city of New Albany’s founding stake cannot ever change. Without the TIF-enabled parking garage, there is nothing, because Mainland has no capital without it. The city’s opening phase is a fait accompli, and so the city must play its hand cautiously as steadily worsening odds suggest another question:

What is the chance that even with a functional parking garage, River View is ever completed as proposed?

---

Before Thursday’s River View remix, New Albany was to have been promptly rewarded for providing Mainland with the necessary parking garage collateral, in the sense that the vital condominium occupancies would be animated right out of the gate.

Now, with Mainland at long last acknowledging prevailing banking, investment, economic and cultural realities, and admitting to errors in creating so many lofty and unlikely expectations, River View’s entire reason for being – its game-changing condominiums – is being pushed all the way to project’s end, and slated to come last, if at all.

In the interim, before the condos are ever close to coming on line, there are to be rental housing units – perhaps useful to Mainland as cash-flow mechanisms, but to repeat, quite contradictory to every previous stated aim of River View as helping to create a residential ownership society downtown.

Besides, do we really need to strengthen the anti-ordinance enforcement bloc, one traditionally dominated by rental property owners, by adding another bloc of rental properties?

And yet for all of Mainland’s lofty, messianic housing aims, Version 2.0 of River View as now described hinges not on residential occupancy, but retail proliferation. Frankly, that’s a risky proposition, and as a cure, it might be worse than the malady.

Realtor and primary Mainland sales appendage Mike Kopp openly divulged to the council on Thursday that the recent merger of his Blue Sun real estate startup with Remax was for the express purpose of tapping into the latter’s commercial strengths, so as to locate a prime retail anchor tenant for River View. These usual code words reek of chain retail covetousness on Mainland’s part; what are the chances of such a retail anchor tenant being an independent local business?

Worse (better?), what are the chances that any of the coveted, cookie-cutter retail chains will occupy space in downtown New Albany prior to the proximity of new condos, their free-spending owners, and the anticipated ripple effect of their presence? Kopp surely is good at his job. At the same time, he’s no miracle worker.

Furthermore, if the “first” phase of River View (to follow the required parking garage) is about retail occupancy, and if no retail anchor tenant can be found, chain or independent, why would banks and investors mandating the phased-in approach still agree to finance the next rental and condo phases?

And, if River View stalls, how exactly does Mainland “pay” for the necessary parking garage?

---

Let’s review.

River View was supposed to benefit the community by creating a residential ownership society, which would “trickle back” benefits to downtown, justifying a $15 million publicly financed parking garage.

Now, in order to approach this goal, Mainland must create not condos, but retail, and on a scale unseen in downtown New Albany since the 1960’s.

Next, it must build on the retail upsurge by adding rental apartment housing, which already inundates the city.

Then, and only then, Mainland will be able to proceed with the condo ownership society, which from the very beginning was the confidently predicted benefit to the community, one worth a $15 million publicly financed parking garage to achieve.

To some, this revised plan for River View will appear sensible. It is difficult to see how. Speaking personally, I’ve nothing against any of the project’s originators or its acolytes, but I’m as yet unconvinced. It’s sad, because it’s such a nice dream, but River View has no clothes. Wishing won’t make it otherwise, and its time for the city to move on by addressing existing infrastructure needs downtown.

(In 2011 at NAC: Highlights & Lowlights: Picking and rewarding the River View winners)

Redevelopment Commission votes to rescind River View option extension for Mainland Properties.

This one speaks for itself. Take it away, Daniel.

New Albany Redevelopment Commission rescinds agreement over River View property; New proposals will be accepted for developing city-owned lots, by Daniel Suddeath (N and T)

NEW ALBANY — Other developers will have an opportunity to purchase the land that had been planned for the $43 million River View project after the New Albany Redevelopment Commission voted Tuesday to rescind an option extension for Mainland Properties.

The commission asked the administration to prepare a new request-for-proposals, or RFP, document and present it to the body next month for review. Commission member Adam Dickey, who was not present when the latest extension was approved by the body in May, said the project is going into its third year without much progress since gaining the option from the city.

“I’m not convinced that we’re moving ahead to the degree that we should be,” he said.

What part of "buyer and seller may choose to extend the Option Period" isn't clear?

The relevant contract excerpt is here; using "or" instead of "and" would change the meaning, but it seems clear to this untrained eye. We're left to guess who possibly might have assured the Mainland team that Redevelopment's approval was a done deal (eyes rolling, oberek spinning), although the plain fact is that Redevelopment already was sending clearly muddled public signals of balky intent through the newspaper.

At this point, it's hard to imagine any public official forthrightly demanding that Mainland show us the money, and yet perhaps Kevin Zurschmiede will fill the role. A better bet is another carefully staged lovefest -- and another lost year before the inevitable.

Has it occurred to anyone after all this time that the reason we're not being shown the money is that there is no money? Like Occam suggests, sometimes the simplest answer is the most plausible.

Deal to extend River View property option not in place; Mainland Properties was under belief option-to-buy was good for another year, by Daniel Suddeath (News and Tribune)

NEW ALBANY — Apparently unbeknownst to the developer, the New Albany Redevelopment Commission will reconsider its options on three pieces of property that has been planned for the multimillion dollar River View project for almost two years.

In June 2010, Mainland Properties head Jack Bobo purchased for $1,000 an option on the lots with the intent that would be used for River View, which is designed to be a multiuse development with retail, office and residential space adjacent to the Floyd County branch of the YMCA of Southern Indiana, near the Ohio River. The option-to-buy was extended for a second year, but the contract expired May 1, according to New Albany Economic Development Director David Duggins.

Extending the option had been a point of discussion recently among city officials, as New Albany City Councilman and redevelopment Commissioner Kevin Zurschmiede questioned whether $1,000 was a fair price to charge to lease the property.

Since the contract expired, Duggins said the matter will have to come back before the redevelopment commission for consideration. The commission likely will accept new proposals for the property, he said.

“We hope that Mr. Bobo and his group will participate in that process,” Duggins said Thursday.

But River View project manager Anita Massey said Mainland Properties was under the belief that it had the right to extend the option-to-buy agreement until May 1 2013 after recently submitting another $1,000 check to the city for another year. She said communication between the city and developer indicated the extend was already approved, and added Mainland Properties recently funded geotechnical exploration work at the site.

Redevelopment to hold a special River View meeting for the review of secret protocols.

Scroll past Chris Morris's coverage of the Midtown Neighborhood Stabilization program's incremental progress, as presented to the Redevelopment Commission, and focus instead on the following passage. Amid escalating hints of desperation, Mainland Properties must come up with some real money, and quite soon.

A special meeting? I'd like to have the peanuts 'n' beer concession on that one.

Idle speculation: Given that the city of New Albany has for the most part unquestioningly endorsed various plans to keep all its eggs in the River View basket, what happens if the project expires? So many times we've heard how important it is to give Mainland every last opportunity to put out to sea, given its organizational expenses (considerable, we're always told) to date. Fair enough, but what we haven't heard is how much it will cost the city in time and potential if the past four years prove to have been wasted.

If the city has a Plan B, it has not revealed it ... and we're not advising you to hold your breaths.

In other business

• Steve Goodman, with New Albany Horizons LLC, along with his partners, asked for a status report of Mainland Properties River View project. The multiuse development along Main Street would feature retail, office and residential space supported by a $12 million parking garage that would be paid for with New Albany tax-increment financing dollars.

Jack Bobo, who heads up River View, placed a $1,000 option on the property in June 2010 and that option was extended a year. Goodman asked if another extension was given. He said his group was concerned since they own adjoining property which they would possibly like to develop in the future.

“We want to know what is going to happen next door to us,” Goodman said.

Redevelopment Commission President Irving Joshua said a special meeting will be called to review the contract and documents with River View.

“I would never agree for a $1,000 option on a million dollar piece of property for a third year,” said Redevelopment Commission and City Council member Kevin Zurschmiede.

Speaking of the riverfront, let's check the class warfare front.

Pictured above is the rear of what New Albanians long have referred to as the Reisz Furniture Building, which has been vacant for as long as most of us can remember, apart from being used by Schmitt Furniture as storage. Recently a proposal has been advanced by a Mishawaka-based firm (Sterling) to restore this long-term eyesore and replace rapidly decaying structures adjacent to it with new buildings, all for the purpose of creating affordable senior housing.

Largely at the behest of members Kevin Zurschmiede (R) and Bob Caesar (PD - Pretend Democrat), New Albany's city council rushed forward a resolution opposing affordable housing tax credits for this project, and these credits subsequently were denied by the state agency.

A half-block to the west, a sign has been erected to tout the "proper" use of governmental incentives to private developers.

For the River View development to proceed, it must be the beneficiary of -- yes, you guessed it -- various governmental subsidies and incentives, without which the utterly cashless Mainland Properties cannot so much as turn one single spade of downtown dirt.

What's more, while Zurschmiede, Caesar and four other council persons took the opportunity of their vote to rail publicly against the very possibility that the Reisz plan might someday, far in the future, be modified to permit differing uses of dwelling spaces than those originally specified in order for construction to be incentivized, not one of them has yet indicated a similar level of internal disturbance with the fact that Mainland has completely changed the nature and intent of its River View project, from enabling downtown condo ownership and residency from the outset, to pushing its ownership society to the very end, with intervening phases of retail, office and (gasp) apartment rentals all to occur first, whether they're needed or not.

Neither Zurschmiede nor Caesar have commented publicly as to what they feel might be a better way to rehab the long neglected Reisz building than the Sterling proposal. Concurrently, they both seem to approve subsidies to build something on the part of a development group with absolutely no money, rather than to incentivize another development group with money enough to a least complete plans without its open palm garishly extended.

If class warfare does not explain these attitudes, then what does?

ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

ON THE AVENUES MONDAY SPECIAL: River View's sweet dreams are not enough.

A weekly web column by Roger A. Baylor.

At a lazily advertised work session last Thursday evening, New Albany’s city council learned that the River View waterfront development project would no longer be coming to town as originally conceived.

That is, if it comes to town at all.

I couldn’t have been the only onlooker catching an unmistakable whiff of airborne desperation, because far from making the River View dream more palpable by openly addressing past concerns and doing pleasant touch-up work to the architectural renderings, Mainland Properties’ most recent presentation instead revealed a slew of major fundamental alterations.

These changes muddy the project’s conceptual basis, and cry out for intensified scrutiny on the part of city officials, who must yet toss a parking garage into the collection plate before the first pitch is thrown.

Mainland has now gone on record, implicitly or explicitly, as conceding virtually every objection previously voiced about River View. By doing so, it has rendered null and void the alleged toxicity of previous questioners, an obfuscation used to justify the England administration’s persistent inability to be truthful in answering queries about the development.

Improbably, the latest, revised River View build-out raises even more questions than the original version, although predictably, the city council chose to ask none of them at Thursday’s work session. I choose to believe that council members were stupefied by sheer incredulity in the face of the fantasies they were being asked to embrace, and I trust they will recover their senses when River View returns to their inboxes.

---

Critically, the revised three-phase plan for River View 2.0 utterly contradicts Jack Bobo’s oft-stated goal for his project, as stressed time and again from inception: It will enable a bold, game-changing caste of condominium owners in downtown New Albany, whose very presence will “trickle back” myriad benefits to the remainder of the community.

Doubtful in the best of times, but for the sake of argument, I’ll temporarily accept that up-market condominium occupants are capable of single-handedly shifting downtown paradigms, and ask this question:

Given the altered three-phase development plan, what is the chance of these transformational condos ever being built?

In answering, let’s first dispense with the fallacious number “three” in reference to River View’s supposedly escalating phases, each one proceeding from the presumed success of the one before.

Of course, there is a fourth phase, actually the very first phase, and without it, not one other domino can so much as consider falling into place: The city of New Albany’s essential “TIF Tithe” for the construction of a 500-unit parking garage.

Both literally and figuratively, River View is to be built atop this commitment.

We must soberly recognize that no matter the continued expediency of River View’s evolution, the city of New Albany’s founding stake cannot ever change. Without the TIF-enabled parking garage, there is nothing, because Mainland has no capital without it. The city’s opening phase is a fait accompli, and so the city must play its hand cautiously as steadily worsening odds suggest another question:

What is the chance that even with a functional parking garage, River View is ever completed as proposed?

---

Before Thursday’s River View remix, New Albany was to have been promptly rewarded for providing Mainland with the necessary parking garage collateral, in the sense that the vital condominium occupancies would be animated right out of the gate.

Now, with Mainland at long last acknowledging prevailing banking, investment, economic and cultural realities, and admitting to errors in creating so many lofty and unlikely expectations, River View’s entire reason for being – its game-changing condominiums – is being pushed all the way to project’s end, and slated to come last, if at all.

In the interim, before the condos are ever close to coming on line, there are to be rental housing units – perhaps useful to Mainland as cash-flow mechanisms, but to repeat, quite contradictory to every previous stated aim of River View as helping to create a residential ownership society downtown.

Besides, do we really need to strengthen the anti-ordinance enforcement bloc, one traditionally dominated by rental property owners, by adding another bloc of rental properties?

And yet for all of Mainland’s lofty, messianic housing aims, Version 2.0 of River View as now described hinges not on residential occupancy, but retail proliferation. Frankly, that’s a risky proposition, and as a cure, it might be worse than the malady.

Realtor and primary Mainland sales appendage Mike Kopp openly divulged to the council on Thursday that the recent merger of his Blue Sun real estate startup with Remax was for the express purpose of tapping into the latter’s commercial strengths, so as to locate a prime retail anchor tenant for River View. These usual code words reek of chain retail covetousness on Mainland’s part; what are the chances of such a retail anchor tenant being an independent local business?

Worse (better?), what are the chances that any of the coveted, cookie-cutter retail chains will occupy space in downtown New Albany prior to the proximity of new condos, their free-spending owners, and the anticipated ripple effect of their presence? Kopp surely is good at his job. At the same time, he’s no miracle worker.

Furthermore, if the “first” phase of River View (to follow the required parking garage) is about retail occupancy, and if no retail anchor tenant can be found, chain or independent, why would banks and investors mandating the phased-in approach still agree to finance the next rental and condo phases?

And, if River View stalls, how exactly does Mainland “pay” for the necessary parking garage?

---

Let’s review.

River View was supposed to benefit the community by creating a residential ownership society, which would “trickle back” benefits to downtown, justifying a $15 million publicly financed parking garage.

Now, in order to approach this goal, Mainland must create not condos, but retail, and on a scale unseen in downtown New Albany since the 1960’s.

Next, it must build on the retail upsurge by adding rental apartment housing, which already inundates the city.

Then, and only then, Mainland will be able to proceed with the condo ownership society, which from the very beginning was the confidently predicted benefit to the community, one worth a $15 million publicly financed parking garage to achieve.

To some, this revised plan for River View will appear sensible. It is difficult to see how. Speaking personally, I’ve nothing against any of the project’s originators or its acolytes, but I’m as yet unconvinced. It’s sad, because it’s such a nice dream, but River View has no clothes. Wishing won’t make it otherwise, and its time for the city to move on by addressing existing infrastructure needs downtown.

(In 2011 at NAC: Highlights & Lowlights: Picking and rewarding the River View winners)

River View an example of why "urban redevelopment projects should put local businesses first."

In River View Version 2.0, the project's retail component now must be the first to succeed, before construction of any condominiums, which were the originally stated aim of the development. Retail build-out also must preface rental housing units, which were not in the previous plan. Of course, for any of these phases to begin, the city's required commitment, a TIF-enabled parking garage, must be completed.

Insofar as the anchor retail tenant is concerned, will realtor Mike Kopp be seeking local, or chain? Let's hope both Kopp and Mainland consider this link, because if their for-profit entity must utilize TIF money to even begin, doesn't the comminity have a very real stake in the type of retail being pursued?

Urban Redevelopment Projects Should Put Local Businesses First

Make Local Business the Anchor Tenant at Canal Side (Opinion), by Sarah Bishop of Buffalo First

We don't need $35 million in public money used to lure another big box store to Canal Side. However, we could always use a boost to our local economy, and great publicity for our local businesses and city. "Buffalo needs to start investing in itself. Putting anchor tenants at Canal Side that are Buffalo community members themselves helps the local economy," said Maria Fox, one of the nearly 100 signatories to date in support of local business as the "anchor" at Canal Side.

Mainland Properties releases video detailing new River View development plan.

Council endorses trickle-back economics in River View vote.

Last night, some crowd members sported red "yes" badges. Seriously, why not green? Wouldn't the symbolism be better than suggested by red? Were the buttons left over from Professor Erika's last yard sign campaign?

At any rate, the council embraced trickle back economics: River View rolls along in New Albany; $53 million development deemed TIF worthy by New Albany council.

Trickling back: It's about gravy, not gravity.

One can be for the River View project or against it, although like most New Albanians, not much of a damn is given at all, but to me, the most regrettable aspect of the proposed development just might be the inexplicable decision of its proponents to describe the potential economic impact on downtown as "trickle back."

I personally heard these words spoken at the recent public hearing at the library, and DNA repeated them in its mailing yesterday -- because that's what happens when you're looking off someone else's paper come exam time.

(By the way, congratulations to OSIN's Daniel Suddeath for including the "trickle back" passage in his account of the coming council vote on inclusion of River View in the TIF area)

Understanding that historical perspective is fleeting in a place like New Albany, it must be stated for the record that "trickle" as an economic (and perhaps linguistic) principle has considerably bad (and dated) connotations, going back to the far-off 1980's and Ronald “Supply Side” Reagan's program to enhance and preserve the wealth of the enriched, crumbs of which inevitably would reach the poor, or so we were told.

For all the hue and cry to date, during which River View's backers have all but suggested that the condo project with $180,000 studio flats would cure the common cold and make Charles Atlas out of the puniest of male anatomies, is it really a positive selling point to define the project’s economic benefits as "trickling back" to the remainder of downtown?

For $53 million (without a TIF pledge, it's so far an imaginary sum), don’t we have a right to expect something more than a trickle? Is the usage of this term unintended buffoonery, cluelessness, or just plain bad writing?

Given the stock caricatures of beautiful, white, Merlot-sipping stock traders gracing the back page of Mainland's prospectus (above), I'm guessing the latter. The acclaimed conversation from yesterday continues here: Mr. Haney, DNA support "trickle back" from River View.

Mr. Haney, DNA support "trickle back" from River View.

I keep intending to ask whether DNA ever did a full board vote on its advocacy of this project, or whether it was an executive decision, but no matter. We've written much about River View, including this sampling:

ON THE AVENUES: How do we pick the winners?

The Wizard of Oz, or maybe Pearl Street.

Gonder on forks and forms (Form Based Codes).

Here's the official DNA case, made with increasing urgency as the vote draws near and community skepticism rises.

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Thursday June 16th is an important night for the future of downtown New Albany.

New Albany’s City Council will hold its regular meeting this Thursday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m. in the 3rd floor Assembly Room of the City/County Building. In this meeting, the Council will vote on whether or not to pass the resolution to include the River View project into the existing downtown TIF district. This vote is critical to the project advancing to the next step! While this is not the final vote that will make the project a go (but rather to simply include the project into the existing TIF district), this is however, a CRITICAL vote because, if the resolution is not passed at this meeting, the project is dead in the water! Mainland Properties MUST get the resolution passed in order to advance to the next step which is secure their private financing. Without the resolution getting passed, the lending institutions will not go any further with working out lending terms until they know we have an actual project. Once the resolution is passed, we’ll then be able to get into the ‘meat’ of the matter on the financing details.

In case you’ve missed the recent public forum / public hearing meetings which Mainland Properties and the City Council have jointly held in an effort to disseminate all of the information and details about the project, let us share with you now some of the more pertinent facts about River View:

River View is an estimated $49 - $53 million project, consisting of retail, office and residential space including;

40,000 sq. ft. of retail space

40,000 sq. ft. of office space

550 space (2-levels) underground, parking garage
… and, a 70,000 sq. ft. public plaza which will offer handicapped parking, water fountains, various art features, park benches, shading devices, beautiful park-like landscaping/trees, bike racks, ample lighting, etc.

150 sq. ft. of residential space (approximately 111 condos, varying in size and price point)

We believe River View is a huge opportunity for the City of New Albany … not only will having such a development bring a dramatic increase in the number of families living downtown (111 estimated families), but also a sizable number of jobs within the development (conservatively, 456 estimated jobs … 230 during construction and 226 afterwards), and significant local income and property tax injections into the TIF district. The positive impact of having such an influx of new residents and workers will certainly trickle back out into the rest of the community and only serve to positively enhance the momentum already enjoyed with the various new shops and restaurants who have recently located within the downtown area. Much like the phenomenal success the YMCA has enjoyed, we believe River View will also enjoy similar success, while at the same time, further supporting the momentum which the YMCA has generated.

So, what is Mainland Properties ‘asking’ of the City?

1. To have the River View project be added into the existing TIF district, which will allow us the opportunity to move forward with the private financing piece.

2. A $12 million Economic Development Bond (NOT to be confused with a General Obligation Bond), to offset the total cost of $19 million to construct the parking garage.

(Keep in mind that Mainland Properties absorbs the remaining $7 million of the garage, as well as the remaining $37 - $41 million of the building masses)

Why should you support the River View project?

1. The risk to the City is ZERO! The $12 million Economic Development Bond will NOT be funded by taxpayers, but rather underwritten by Mainland Properties.

2. The City will not release ANY money from the bond until Mainland Properties has their private financing secured, guaranteed and ready to implement.

3. Mainland Properties’ credit worthiness MUST be strong enough for them to secure financing in order to move the project forward. If it’s not, then NO project and NO bond.

4. If, at some point, there should be a shortfall in the tax revenue accrued from the development, then Mainland Properties will be liable for the bond payment, NOT the City and NOT the taxpayers. The risk truly lies with Mainland Properties … NOT the City!

If you’re anxious to see New Albany experience a remarkable, long-awaited rebirth and have a downtown area which invokes the mood and atmosphere of a much simpler time when people took pride in their community, walked to the store and talked to their neighbors, we believe NOW is New Albany’s chance! There are few opportunities in our lives to be associated with the rebirth of a community, and yet New Albany is on the verge of just such a moment.

Please join us this Thursday, June 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the City/County Building and show your support for River View.

ON THE AVENUES: How do we pick the winners?

ON THE AVENUES: How do we pick the winners?

By ROGER BAYLOR
Local Columnist

Scandalized churchgoer: “Is this a game of chance?”

W.C. Fields, poker hand at the ready: “Not the way I play it.”

On Wednesday evening, I took the missus to a revue at the library’s Strassweg Rialto.

It was called “Puttin’ on the TIF,” and starred Mainland Properties. Co-starring was Carl Malysz, evidently the lame duck mayor’s semi-permanent stand-in for such productions, and both Mike Kopp and Mose Putney had prominent cameos.

At this, the second of the city council’s public shindigs on the proposed River View development, much well-choreographed information was dispensed. There also were variable dollops of misinformation (soft shoe), and certain bits of non-information (shuck and jive), and as I listened, it occurred to me how rapidly the parameters of this discussion are expanding.

Seemingly by the minute, project proponents are upping the ante. By the time the council meets next week, River View will have cured the common cold. Give it another couple weeks, and it will be among the favorites to win the Tour de France.

With the list of River View’s future benefits to the community having long since surpassed the attributes of any product ever pitched by the late Billy Mays on basic cable, all that’s left is for Pinocchio to file a lawsuit alleging infringement of copyright.

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Obviously, the question of whether to deploy TIF’s property tax diversion toolbox as a means of local government deigning to pick a for-profit winner, in the sense of providing the collateral necessary for the investment group to obtain project capital it clearly does not possess without the city as co-signer, has significantly transcended local government’s stated mandate to pursue “economic development.”

Yet again, we have entered the realm of economic development as church service, with believers battling non-believers. There is much being accepted on the basis of faith, and little being empirically proven. As in all religious wars, exaggerations and contradictions offered by the pious are supposed to stand, unquestioned, while aspersions are cast on the integrity of those who dare offer contrarian viewpoints.

Consequently, with each additional claim as to River View’s socio-economic curatives, a contrarian like me feels challenged to demand that previously unquestioned assertions be proven.

As a case in point, after reading coverage of the first public hearing, where it was mentioned that Heine Brothers Coffee and Bristol Bar & Grill are among those expressing interest in occupying River View’s commercial space, I thought it useful to ask my contacts at these two companies whether it was true.

The response from one was that while it had been discussed, it was a very long time ago and had almost been forgotten in the interim. From the other, it was simpler: “No.” And yet River View backers regularly use items like this as a means of persuasion. If the diminished local newspaper can’t or won’t follow up, someone must.

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I didn’t fall off the hay wagon yesterday afternoon, and the fact remains that government regularly seeks to pick winners. A citizenry inured to apathy tends to accept such games of economic development chance, providing that certain fundamental ground rules are obeyed.

The playing field needs to be somewhat level, and transparency should be exercised to preclude the historical excesses of the smoke-filled back room.

These days, it is fitting and proper to ask in addition that some thought be given to future exigencies. As a counter example, the major deficiency of the Ohio River Bridges Project from inception to the present day is its breathtaking assumption that whatever worked as a “mobility solution” for automobiles during the Eisenhower administration will still be true in the year 2060.

Picking a winner? I believe that in the case of Mainland’s proposals for River View, the city of New Albany’s due diligence needs to be notched considerably higher.

Picking a winner? While River View conceptually fills a slot implied by the second phase of the Scribner Place (whatever happened to that planned name, anyway?) master plan, it emphatically is not to be confused with the YMCA, even if proponents insist on perpetuating this fallacy.

River View is for-profit, and the YMCA non-profit. Furthermore, the Horseshoe Foundation is not poised to lavish $20 million on a condo development, and there is no comparable provision to reduce the price of condos for those members of the community who cannot afford them.

Picking a winner? To assist River View in the cause of economic development is to subsidize a luxurious, private, for-profit project profoundly out of whack with local realities. What’s more, 700 sq. ft. “efficiency” condos at 180K are not the key to increasing the number of 22-45 year olds in New Albany, as an audience member asserted on Wednesday.

Rather, our neglected neighborhoods are where this demographic wants to locate. Our neighborhoods are where there are $75,000 houses in need of refurbishment, where young people wouldn’t need a $75,000 salary to be able to buy and devote elbow grease to rehabilitation. If – heaven forbid – civic muscle were to be devoted to curbing slumlord empowerment enforcing the stray ordinance, these young people might choose to raise a family here.

Picking a winner? New Albany may be a toad, but this riverfront spot is a plum. We’re being asked to subordinate potential use as a public-owned commons to a private high-income profit motive, with the hope that public access to a plaza can be balanced with private interests.

Consequently, while any real estate development of this magnitude is risky, the risk in this instance is even greater owing to the irreplaceable nature of what could be lost for the sake of four $1.2 million penthouses in the sky.

Picking a winner? Okay, but is this the “winner” we need to be picking? I say this because on Wednesday, Mainland’s spokesperson actually used the word “trickle” to describe the way that River View would impact the local economy.

Penthouses trickling down to us ... ye Gods, how’s that for imagery?

Without the city's collateral, Mainland cannot get the money.

That's apparently why showing us the money has never been part of the plan. There is no money absent the parking garage as collateral. You can make of this what you will, yes or no, up or down, but let's just be clear about it.

Another public hearing for River View, tonight at the library.

Interestingly, Develop New Albany's e-mail reminder of tonight's meeting contains this sentence: "A levee cut is not part of this project." It wasn't, then it was, now it isn't. Somehow, I'm reminded of Alice, and offer this paraphrasing from Wonder/Mainland:

I wonder if it's been changed in the night? Let me think. Was it the same when I got up this morning? I almost think I can remember it feeling a little different. But if it's not the same, the next question is 'What in the world is it?' Ah, that's the great puzzle!

Here is the newspaper's official announcement.

Second River View forum set for tonight (News and Tribune)

A second public forum regarding the proposed River View development will be hosted by the New Albany City Council at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday.

The event will be held in the Strassweg Auditorium of the New Albany-Floyd County Public Library, located at the intersection of Spring Street and Scribner Drive in downtown New Albany.

The council has a measure before it to place River View in a tax-increment financing district, making it eligible to receive TIF proceeds to pay back a $12 million bond project planners are looking to borrow to fund a parking garage and plaza ...

At sparsely attended public hearing, Mainland finally offers justification for River View: "We'll get a Baja Fresh!!!"

OSIN's Daniel Suddeath provides coverage of last evening's River View public hearing, of which I must confess to abject ignorance, having somehow entirely missed whatever tepid notification was given.

To summarize: The River View project's cost now has risen to $53 million, and yet there remain no financial disclosures on the part of investors; other potential real estate investors in the neighborhood question why the same package wasn't offered to them by the city; all the things presumed that you cannot explain still are expected to move growth in mysterious ways because Mike Kopp and DNA say so; and if we all stay quiet and play along with the lame duck administration, we may be able to watch movies at a two-screen national chain theater atop former public property.

But I digress.

River View team says New Albany not responsible for $12M bond; Proposed development discussed during Tuesday public hearing

... River View is now being projected by Mainland Properties to cost up to $53 million, up from early estimates of $44 million. The development would be located adjacent to the Floyd County branch of the YMCA of Southern Indiana along Main Street ...

... “All of this will spur additional growth,” said Mike Kopp, the Realtor for River View and the owner of Blue Sun Real Estate in New Albany ...

... There were about 30 people at the public forum, but the majority were city officials or members of the development team ...

... As for potential tenants, Mainland Properties said several restaurants are interested in River View including Bristol Bar and Grille, Baja Fresh and Heine Brothers Coffee.

Secure in the knowledge that knowledge is good, and follow-up questions even better, I'm checking today with the folks at Heine Brothers and Bristol to gauge their level of involvement, and to let them know of some of the issues with River View that I'm guessing were not shared with them.

Meanwhile, according to Wikipedia, "Baja Fresh is a chain of fast-casual Tex Mex restaurants founded in Newbury Park, California, in 1990 and headquartered in Cypress, California." Since I don't feel like making a phone call to corporate HQ in CA to leave an unreturned voicemail about local issues, I'll merely reiterate: Death to chains and the projects that foster them. New Albany is a La Rosita's town, and I aim to keep it that way.

Carl Malysz's lost comment at "Are you TIF enough?"

Last night, Carl Malysz left a comment on the post, "Are you TIF enough?" This morning it was gone; I've been asked why, and I don't know.

As blog administrator, I am notified by e-mail when comments are posted, and the notification came through fine. Later, the space was blank. The good news is that for the fist time in two weeks, the "compose" screen here works properly. At any rate, here is the lost comment from Carl Malysz:

According to my sources on the City Council, the Resolution for River View will not be acted upon this coming Thursday, April 21st. That said, I will not post Q&A on the City's website until a later time. However, I will attempt to clarify what is in process with River View right now.

Mainland Properties is asking the City to issue Economic Development Bonds (EDBs) through an ordinance adopted by the Common Council. The process includes a public hearing that will be conducted by the Economic Development Commission (EDC), after which the EDC will adopted a Resolution regarding the project and bond issue. But the EDB process has not yet begun.

The New Albany Redvelopment Commission is being asked to fund future pro rata bond payments for the public improvements of the project-- the parking garage and the plaza-- by pledging the future tax increment generated by the development.

The TIF process is just getting started. The NARC passed a Resoluiton to include the parking garage and plaza into the TIF district; the NACPC ratified the NARC Resolution; but the process has been stalled at the Common Council as indicated above.

After the parking garage and plaza become part of the TIF district plan, the NARC will have to pass resolutions/other actions to pledge the TIF to the project. That would be done sometime before the Common Council would pass an ordinance authorizing issuance of the EDBs.

The EDBs contemplated will not be a risk to the City of New Albany. All that is being pledged or promised, if you will, is the tax increment from the River View Development. No one is proposing a property tax back-up or an EDIT back-up or any other back-up at this time. If the Common Council was asked for a back-up, it would have to authorize it. (Such a back-up is not automatic with EDBs and again, I will repeat, no one is asking for a back-up. And these are NOT TIF bonds...)

The public improvements will be built by Mainland Properties. There will be a lease with the City to ensure public use and access while the bonds are being paid off. After the bonds are paid off, there will be a transfer of ownership of the parking garage and plaza or another long-term agreement to ensure public access and use.

All of this will be controlled by ordinances, agreements, bond documents, et cetera. It is way to early to produce all of this stuff right now. We are only at the beginning of an incremental process that will likely take several months to complete. But I am open to questions and suggestions.