Jason Freier's interview with Journal-Gazette

Jason Freier Hardball Capital partner, answers five questions. Gives five interesting answers.

Hat tip to Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball.

Hotel to replace downtown Belmont

Folks traveling to downtown Belmont to purchase their spirits, will find themselves standing in the lobby of the proposed new Marriott Lobby. While standing at the Belmont counter you will have to envision what the Marriott lobby may look and feel like.

Belmont will shutting the doors of this downtown liquor store on March 31, 2007. Belmont will move it supplies to the office and warehouse located at 3309 North Anthony. The loyal customers can select from 17 other Belmont stores to do their shopping, The closest Belmont stores to the downtown area are at Fairfield, South Calhoun, and W. Jefferson Street.

Original it was reported that Belmont was to move where the current Greyhound Station, but for reason not disclosed the deal fail through for the city. Holiday Inn is located across from the Greyhound Station.

I am surmising here. I believe that the stadium movement to downtown impacted the fact that the hotel would be built at the Belmont location across from the Grand Wayne Center. Belmont was ousted from the land. The stadium choice nicked the plan to renovate Holiday Inn because location wise, the Holiday Inn is quite a distance away from the proposed location of the new downtown stadium.


Just analyzing the data that is available, I suspect that downtown development has also been nicked as well to pursuit support and development of the new stadium. The direction of the location of the stadium is away from downtown and toward Webster and Ewing across Jefferson cutting off downtown and the southside.

Of course to appease the local business men, Harrison Square is touted as land investment for these business owners who would like to relocate to the area to provide services that will be needed by the anticipated crowds from the baseball stadium and convention goers to the Grand Wayne Center and the Allen County Library.

Downtown will simply maintain a cosmetic staple of buildings serving as a historic landmark. Nothing will be added to attract folks to shop or play downtown beyond the the new stadium and library. This is simply utilizing funds that could improve the city toward investment in projects to attract dollars from out side source to compensate for the loss of jobs from businesses closing and leaving the city of Fort Wayne. And this is called economy development without creating jobs for the taxpayers?!!!

This from an intuitive perspective that lack all the necessary data in making my assessment.

Inexperience bargaining with billion dollar company-Downtown Hotel

The City only received one proposal to built the prerequisite hotel for another developer to build a downtown stadium. The single proposal places the inexperienced city workers in a weak negotiating position when dealing with the more experienced sophisticated billion dollars business tycoons.

Having only one proposal does not leave the city without any leverage, Leatherman said. If the companies are not flexible, the city could end talks and restart the search for a developer. But Leatherman does not expect that to happen.

The fact that the city is losing many jobs may place the city workers in a role of self-dealing at the negotiation table which is not in the best interest of the tax payers, who will partially be footing the bill for building this hotel.
The hotel has gone from 300 rooms to 250 rooms, and the cost from $30 million to $47 million.

The imbalance will become apparent, at the negotiation table, in the amount of dollars that will be taken from the local budgets from property taxes. Property tax dollars used to subsidy the building of the hotel in hopes of recapturing the value of the hotel building, innkeeper taxes, and sale taxes, later. More than likely the developers will receive a tax abatement reducing the about of revenue going back into the budget from the new investment in hopes of creating new jobs.

Small business owners are distracted with fighting a smoking ban, at this moment, while the city is negotiating away many of their tax dollars to support a single private developer. The diverting of their tax dollars to a single private developer will increase the amount of taxes their business will have to pay with the developers projects. The battle against the smoking ban must not service as a smoke screen by preventing these small businesses from paying attention to what the city is willing to give away to wealthy private investors who are not local that will harm them down the road.

Small Business Owners vs. City of Fort Wayne

What does the downtown development mean to African-Americans investors? You're not welcome unless you are probably a client of the nonprofit businesses that are in the area both Foellinger Foundation

and the Early Childhood Alliance.

At 436 E. Wayne, The law firm of Van Gilder and Trzynka, moved into the neighborhood close to the end of 2006. The law firm renovated the building that was formerly a body shop into offices for lawyers. It was used once by Spiegels, a catalogue store.

The owners did not disclose how much the building cost purchased for but it was alleged to have over $500,000 in renovation. The lawyers moved from the new Harrison Square district out of the Metro building into their new neighborhood. And guess what Woodson Motorsports, would move into the neighborhood, Indiana’s only distributor of BMW motorcycles. A costly move.

According to Brain Bucket Bikers,

The dealership is owned by Rod Woodson, a former All-Pro in the National Football League, and Tracy Foster, an Indiana All-Star from Homestead who played professional basketball overseas

.

And the business may be the only African-American owned,

is the only minority-owned dealership selling Kawasaki and Suzuki bikes in the country, as far as Ackels knows.

Unlike, the owners of the law firm, the purchased price was discussed.

Woodson Motorsports paid about $500,000 to buy the building at 436 E. Washington Blvd. from the Tippmann Group and plans to spend about $200,000 more to renovate the 20,000-square-foot, retail-zoned space in time to open operations there in January.

I highly suspect the building was not worth the $500,000 that was paid during the 2003 blotched up reassessment, and was more than likely only valued at a third of the assessed value.

So what happen to the city's incentive for this business to do business downtown? According to a news report, the money for redevelopment of $30,000 for the facade was not approved. The three folks who were responsible for determining who gets the $30,000, Sharon Feasel, Greg Leatherman, and Dan Carmody did not even bother to tell one of the business owners they did not qualify for the funds, according to a Wane-15 news report on January 19, 2007.

The business filled out an application in September 2006. The application can be found on the city's website under

The Downtown Fort Wayne CEDIT Incentive Pool which was established by Mayor Graham Richard to help improve downtown Fort Wayne’s competitiveness in attracting and retaining businesses, encourage private commercial reinvestment, stimulate redevelopment and improve downtown property values.

Authority to approve the use of Incentive Pool funds lies with the Mayor of Fort Wayne.

The application says the Mayor of Fort Wayne has the authority to approve. Last I checked the Mayor was named Graham Richard.


This is the second business that has run into problem participating in the downtown revitalization using their own money. On January 25, 2007 a public hearing will be held for a business located on the corner of Pontiac and Lafayette. The building owner was given the wrong permit. The building was temporary condemned, stopping the work on the building.
Yet, those who have little or no money are still pussyfooting around with renovating the Rialto. A nonprofit required to be made up of members of the neighborhood was to receive a year to renovate the building and years later the building is still under construction.

In October of 2003, The Reclamation Project finalized the purchase of the theater and the adjacent Tobacco Road store. Three additional vacant lots were also purchased for parking behind the building.

This place is to offer housing assistance to international folks (sounds a little like Centlivre). It changes everyday, but nothing including, the old in the wall Tobacco Road Store. is being used for its purpose. Nothing.

So who is welcomed in the process of redeveloping downtown?