Tom Smith we are working on the riverfront

TOM Smith is going to vote for the Baseball Park, he just playing to the crowd. Others will vote based on ego like Tim Pape a vote for his children's future, Sam Talarico for his children's future, John Crawford, leader of the pack, Tom Hayhurst, to keep his friends employed, and Glenn Hines, because he can use something else instead of the Southtown Centre mantra and Renaissance Pointe, to tell African-American voters, they have a future in low wage jobs.

Oh I forgot Tom Didier, where ever the Republican says to sign, so will he go, so that's a total of seven. Forget how much it's going to cost the taxpayer. It's a place where they all hang out together, ain't that special.

Tom Smith is already campaigning for the next project; Riverfront. That leaves the two senior guys. John Shoaff and Don Schmidt, well it makes sense, the elders know how to think for themselves and that makes a big difference when it comes to real leadership.

From the DID website: Municipal Riverfront Improvement District/ CREeD. An infill strategy for the downtown core is being developed that will weld these two sets of incentives to grow mixed-use projects, featuring first floor retail/restaurants and upper floor housing as well as integrating arts and culture into a number of smaller developments. Setting the conditions to spur creative industries is the key goal of the strategy.

Loft Competition: We are working to finalize construction numbers on the development of four lofts.


Community Based Development: The mixed-use development that the DID has helped conceptualize for Superior Street adjacent to Club Soda is being pursued by a local development team. Environmental issues are currently being studied to see how they
will impact development at the site.The DID is working to spur housing in two buildings with for-profit developers. Both rehabs would produce cool loft product, but it has not been determined whether units would be ownership or rental.


UEA / DID Collaboration: John Stafford has agreed to facilitate detailed discussions between the DID and Urban Enterprise Association boards, about how the two agencies might become more intertwined. Recommendations to the full boards are expected in time for consideration at April meetings.

Survival Instinct

The City of Fort Wayne is going into business with Hardball Capital, a group based in Atlanta, to build condominiums in downtown Fort Wayne. The owners of the Fort Wayne Wizards, a minor league baseball team, will enter into a memorandum of understanding with the city as developers. The Fort Wayne Wizards was sold to a group headed by Chris Schoen, a real estate developer, attorney Jason Freier and 10 other investors in February, 2006, according to Atlanta Business Chronicle. According to Atlanta Business Chronicle, Barry Real Estate Companies, Inc. was founded in 1996 and Barry Real Estate Companies, "[a]ll told, the company has about 18 projects in various stages of development -- the most in the history of the firm.

Other notable projects by Barry Real Estate include:

The Crown at Symphony Place in Nashville, Tenn. The 34-story, 600,000-square-foot office tower designed by Jon Pickard will be next to the new Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Delivery date is the first quarter of 2009.
Prospect Park in Alpharetta. Barry Real Estate will develop about 1 million square feet of office space on 22.5 acres of the 100-acre mixed-use Prospect Park. Delivery date is 2008.
Alpharetta Town Center in Alpharetta. The company will build a new City Hall on 9 acres as part of a mixed-use redevelopment of downtown that will include 81,000 square feet of retail, 157 condos and 48,000 square feet of office space. Delivery date is December 2008.
Overton Park in Atlanta's Cobb/Galleria submarket, which will include a 160-room hotel and 60 condominium units at the second phase of Overton Park, a 34-acre, mixed-use community at Cumberland Boulevard and Interstate 75. Madison Retail LLC will develop 55,000 square feet of retail at the site. Delivery date is December 2008."

Next year, according to the Atlanta Business Chronicle, "On the residential side, Barry Real Estate and Post Properties Inc. (NYSE: PPS) are teaming up to build Post at Allen Plaza, which will include 330 apartments, 150 condos and a 200-room suite hotel across from the new World of Coke. Construction will begin in the first half of next year. That project, along with condominium developer Novare Group Inc.'s TWELVE Centennial Park hotel and condo project, and the residences in the W, will bring the district to as many as 3,000 homes."

This was after years of quietly assembling the requisite land, according to the article.

In Fort Wayne, Indiana, there is a vast amount of land bordering Jefferson Boulevard, Harrison, Brackenridge and Ewing streets that the city will provide in the deal. According to the News-Sentinel, "Phase 1, which will include a hotel, 8,000-seat minor-league stadium, 1,000-space parking garage, park, 30,000 square feet of street-level shops and 60 condos, will be located on about 30 acres bounded by Jefferson Boulevard to the north, Ewing Street to the west, Harrison Street to the east and Brackenridge Street to the south. Agreements are already in place to acquire the necessary property, Becker said, although Bill’s Palace restaurant at 1202 S. Harrison St. has not agreed to sell and will remain."

The public will contribute about 50% of the dollars, according to the city's website. "Project costs for the initial phase, including land and infrastructure, would be around $125 million. Approximately 50% of the total project cost would come from public sources. The remaining 50% would be privately financed. When all phases of the project are completed, it’s expected that the overall costs would be 60% private and 40% public."

The website states these public funds won't come from property taxes. So my questions is if not from property taxes than wherefore from thine willet spring forth thee public funds come from? From the sky?

At the same time a local developer decides to forgo turning the downtown holiday inn into condominiums. Bill Bean cites the cost of buying and overhauling the building would be just too much for a leasing project. I suspect the three millions in tax credits to renovate the holiday will shift to the new project under the memorandum of understanding. And the brownfield development program funds that was to clean up and build housing in the Creighton-Hanna will more than likely shift toward the downtown area.

We did hear that somehow over 800 gallons of oils recently went undetected under the brand new spanking Allen County Library. The Library, just so happen to have sold some land to the city. 'head shaking' I enclose this here because I thought brownfield funds were for environment cleaning area.so what's up?

Oh and the city will borrow $45 million with a bond to contribute to the revitalization of downtown. What about all that TIF money for the area where is it going? I still trying to figure out the name of the new stadium..Richard Stadium?!



Click here to see an artist rendition of the Harrison SQ.