The Talks Continues-Harrison Square Park

Memorandum of Understanding for stuff other than the hotel

Memorandum of Understanding among the following parties:

City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, The Redevelopment Commission of the City of Fort Wayne, Indiana, Fort Wayne Professional Baseball, LLC, Hardball Capital LLC and Barry Real Estate Companies, LLC..


The groups have placed their John Hancock on a memorandum with language that all parties involved are working in good faith, together to agree on some things, while working on some other things. But the MOU is not a legally binding document. As stated under Recital (E):

D.

This Memorandum is intended to memorialize the current understanding between the parties regarding the basic scope and structure of the Project.It is not intended as a binding obligation of either party, but rather an expression of good faith and commitment to continue the diligently working toward the objectives outlined herein.

The groups are still in negotiation.

The Project consist of three stages:

Phase 1--hotel with 250 rooms
Parking facility -900 spaces
condominium-60
retail space-minimum of 30,000 square feet of commercial space
Stadium-multi purpose


So, Phase 1 is all inclusive, but some parts are independent of the other.

Hotel is a third party
Parking facility owned and operated by the City and/or the City of Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission (Redevelopment Commission) to service the Hotel, Lincoln National Corporation, public parking and the Stadium . The Parking Structure is not intended to serve as the primary parking facility for the Stadium. The Stadium would be owned by the City or Redevelopment Commission or other related entity, and managed by HC or a related HC entity under the terms of a management agreement.

The Stadium is to be in compliance with the Professional Baseball Agreement Minimum Facility Standards for Class AA baseball stadiums. The Stadium will contain at least 5,000 seats with a depressed seating bowl, walk around concourse and a minimum of 12-16 suites. Other stuff will or may be stipulated before the binding agreement.

The big ticket item-Stadium

HC is in for a $30,000,000 stadium, if it exceeds that cost, HC will not provide another penny. The cost includes hard construction costs, architectural fees, and all related design, engineering costs and expenses, and certain personal property to be supplied by the city. As will be defined in the binding agreement,


HC will contribute, in cash or cash equivalent, during construction, the amount of $5,000,000 which shall be applied to the Stadium cost. The Stadium must be completed by September 2009. The construction should begin no longer than September 2007.


Now new housing and retail-downtown

Barry Real Estate (BRE)( this name is new) we are use to hearing Hardball Capital, but not Barry Real Estate. BRE or a related entity, shall commit to the construction of a minimum number of residential condominium units presently expected to be 60 units and to to Retail Space, presently expected to be 30,000 square feet of lease able Retail space within Phase 1 of the retail and Condominium Development at Harrison Square. BRE or a related entity, will spend $14,500,000. The City in return will assist HC in obtaining available tax abatement, New Market Tax Credits, CREeD tax credits and other available incentives in connection with the Residential Condominiums and Retail Development, including assistance in identifying possible investors to acquire transferable credits where available. And for each phase, somewhere in the tune 1.4.5 million dollars for infrastructure cost.

Having typed all that, the deal could fall through on Phase 2 and Phase 3 and by default go to other developers. Or the whole thing could collapse if the hotel is not built.


Memorandum of Understanding for the Hotel


The MOU is between the City of Fort Wayne Department of Redevelopment by the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission (Commission) and Acquest Realty Advisors, Inc./acquest Development Inc. and White Lodging Service Corporation (Development Team)

The hotel will be a full service Marriott. If however, the balance of the Harrison square project is cancelled and or delayed, the design may be modified. Development of the Project is not contingent upon the development of the balance of the Harrison Square Project, except for the Parking Facility.


But the stadium is contingent on the hotel.



The land as be amassed, it is now up to the developers to come in and work their magic. That is with the approval of City Council.


Disclaimer, this was a first pass through on the MOU, and this is what I gleamed from the documents. However, the documents are here for you to purview and reach your own conclusion. H/t to Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball.

If Fort Wayne is unable to pull this deal off with Jason and Friends, it will go to its B Plan. The land it has acquired from Omni-Source. The City will try and save face and build a water slide, casino or whatever it was that the taxpayer told them they wanted, allegedly a $4.3 million dollar 29 acres riverfrontoption agreement deal.

Harrison Square Park Fan coming soon to downtown

Don't expect for any public comments when the Harrison Square Park goes before City Council. I don't think they care what the public has to say, their only interested in the call, Let's play ball.

Sometimes folks stumble onto my blog through a search. And being the curious person I am I sometime follow the search terms. The term Fort Wayne Sport Corporation lead to the law firm of Barrett and McNagny. It goes to the community involvement statement and its partners.


I found several of the partners' community involvement very interesting.




Thomas Niezer

Fort Wayne Sports Corp. - Board Member and Vice President
Housing and Neighborhood Development Services, Inc. - Board Member
Bishop Dwenger High School - Board of Education - Member and President
Downtown Blueprint Plus/City of Fort Wayne - Steering Committee Member
The Learning and Development Center, Inc. - Legal Advisor
Three Rivers Festival - Past President
Leadership Fort Wayne - Graduate

I remember reading about Thomas Niezer here.

Niezer also addressed allegations that the amount of government money received by NHP and reported on its tax returns did not match the amounts reported by the city, which awarded them. Niezer said the city reports the amount of money that was awarded, while NHP reports the amount of money actually received and in hand because the awards are only paid to the agency as the money is spent.

Niezer said he takes issue with city councilmen who have called NHP's loans "predatory," saying the interest rates the Partnership charged were always below market value, in some cases lower than 1 percent.

Niezer listed the actions of NHP, pointing out that all 3,000 loan applicants were enrolled in homebuyer training courses, even if they were not approved for financing, the agency did not charge mortgage insurance and did everything it could to help clients avoid foreclosure.

And here, here, and only eight (8) sues, and here, and the Indiana Attorney General says where is the money? The money? The money? The Money?

Samuel J. Talarico, Jr.

City of Fort Wayne Common Council - Elected Member
Fort Wayne - Allen County Economic Development Alliance - Board Member

Talarico, Jr. is big on the Harrison Square Park.

To tack on interest is like saying I bought a $150,000 home for $400,000,” Talarico said.

Interesting, huh Hardball Capitol, Jason Freier. This alone explain why only $2 millions dollars of private investment was spent downtown..why use your own money when you can use OPM. It's a tradition in Fort Wayne, called using other people money.

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.

No general taxes- Harrison Square Park-Fake Appraisal

The aggregated assessed value of all taxable property located within the tax incremental district was the question that was offered at the Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana Harrison Square downtown meeting at the Allen County Main Library. It did not get asked or answered. But it is obvious that it is astate law requirement. Ryan Lengerich reports in the News-Sentinel the appraisal will now happen.

State law says the redevelopment commission must obtain two appraisals in a land sale with the average of the two indicating fair market value.

But the Harrison Square land purchase wasn’t typical. City officials took out land options and agreed to purchasing prices behind closed doors. This prevented land owners from inflating their asking price -- as city officials said would have happened had word leaked out about the city’s $125 million-to-$160 million downtown revitalization project.

Is this not a deceptive practice by someone acting under the color of the law? Was not the whole purpose to deceive and mislead the public?

as city officials said would have happened had word leaked out about the city’s $125 million-to-$160 million downtown revitalization project

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Appraisals have to be approved in open meetings.

So is the City calling Greg Leatherman sneaking around town the open meeting? Was Leatherman trying to save the city money or was it trying to prevent the folks from asking the hard questions.

So Mr. save the taxpayers some money is now willing to pay for appraisal for land that is already owned by the city? Why is that? Mr. Leatherman wants to make should that they get credit now for the value of the land. Or did Mr. Freier and Mr. Schoen, require the appraisal? $63,000 for how many appraisals? Does the laws require at least 2?

Why don't we have more lawsuits? I just want to see Greg Leatherman and Mayor Dick on the witness stand, lying through their teeth. But we know Mayor Dick won't take the stand because he didn't when he was called to testify on the stealing of South town Mall and its improper appraisal.

Wayne Township Relief vs. Harrison Square Park Funding

Rick Stevenson Applauds, Applauds to Wayne Township Trustee Rick Stevenson for pointing out the lack of funding in the Wayne Township budget needed to serve the community. According to Amanda Icone's article in the journal-gazette.

Stevenson requested a million dollars for Wayne Township budget. The Republican led Allen County Commissioners denied the request while the Allen County Council agreed to provide the funding. Of course this is a temporary loan from the county.

Township Trustee Rick Stevenson asked the county commissioners last week to borrow the money to cover costs through the spring, but the commissioners denied the request. He went before the council Thursday hoping for an advance on its tax distribution.

The media has given lots of ink and air time to young folks having meetings about what they need to have fun in downtown Fort Wayne. They don't have a clue that jobs and people are leaving, because of the high increases in taxes throughout the city. Many families remain in the city and work. Many of these families fall short of meeting their basis needs because of the low wages in the core of the city. These families are not carrying around pictures of a baseball park, they are carrying around the grit needed to make life better for their children. These families are the ones paying the price for( stealing a line from Cyndi Lauper) girls (boys)who just want to have fun. These family have little to no disposable income in taking care of their families.

A voice of reason came from Allen County Council Person Darren Vogt in the article,

But Councilman Darren Vogt, R-3rd, was concerned that the higher interest rate from an outside lender would increase the township’s tax rates. That could adversely affect taxpayers and send more people to the township seeking poor relief, he said.

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Several speakers at the Harrison Square Park meeting held at the Allen County Main Library stated that 50,000 folks had left the core of the city. Dan Carmody
Dan Carmody Downtown Improvement District spoke about the exodus of more than 50,000 folks from the city. 50,000. This number suggest that folks are leaving Fort Wayne. This out migration is not only people but includes loss revenue. The tax burden of growing the current population was placed on those who were left behind in the central city. The tax shift to the suburb contributed to the gutting and negligent of downtown.

Today, the city and county need to reach into the pockets of those who prospered from leaving the city, and capture some funds to restore downtown. The restoration of downtown includes the Harrison Square Park. Instead of impact fees to capture the revenue needed to finance the downtown redevelopment, the wager is that projects within the Harrison Square Park with provide some of the necessary funding.

Not only that, young professionals returning home from college are bored with the cookie cutter life style of the suburbia. These young go-getters are seeking a more creative fun social life in the less inhibited urban core. However, these urban dwellers want homeowners rather than seeking a lifestyle of renters. This myth is that the young will build a new tax base in purchasing housing.

These potential homeowners are different than the old stuck in the mud Leave it to Beaver generation, a husband, wife and children. These young generation are seeking shared housing among friends. Friends who they can work with, hang out at their favorite restaurant or bar with. These young folks are seeking a downtown where they can live work and play in a bigger playground one that does not have the incestuous feel of their smaller communities.

Unfortunately this new younger generation bring in certain type of bias. They want to remove the old dwellers and create their newer cookie cutter community inside the urban core. These folks young folks don't have a clue, but show their true colors. It is the city's poor funding, the police department, schools, and other units. Each of these department demand more from this shrinking community. Take a look at that reassessment again. And the rest of the story has not been told, that these young professionals are unable to afford home ownership of the condos being proposed by Hardball Capital.

YLNI and Hardball Capital Meeting Pictures

Jason Freier

Mark Pope, faciliator and Bennie Lewis

Wilbert "Duke" Brown and Deputy Mayor Mark Becker

Small talk
Adam Mildred and Bill Brown

Steve Brody

Wilbert "Duke" Brown and Deputy Mayor Mark Becker

5th District Council Person Tim Pape

Land for sale

The Young Leaders from Northeast Indiana meeting ended early. The biggest treat was to speak to the million dollar man himself, Jason Freier. Freier, is taking a risk. Freier, the outsider has upped the ante. Freier is investing $20 million dollars into the downtown business district. Something that hometown business owners have failed to do. So you got a love Freier. There is no way around that fact.

But, Freier is no country hick. Freier tells about a business man who listened to the people. The business man purchased up the land. After acquiring the land began to built offices in a certain downtown. The man is in his 70 and is worth billions of dollars.

Freier has an eye for an opportunity. Freier need not purchase up the land like an old protege. The City of Fort Wayne is giving it to him. On this land Freier will spend around $20 million dollars. $15 millions will go toward building some condominium. Nice condominiums with the price range in the ballpark area of $180,000 to $300,000. Let's see a little multiplication and addition, and I come up with a figure between $10 million to $18 millions for 60 of those bad boys. Now the price and number may change. Interest in ownership will more than likely drive the price. That does not include the baseball park.


The baseball park design is a beautiful place. Why wouldn't be. Freier is a baseball fan and he loves his team's, the Wizard's , fans. Freier envision a baseball park that is fun for the whole family. A baseball park where family can enjoy a picnic. And perhaps because he has two little ones, where children can play on oversize slides of some sort. And with the downtown baseball park, this dream can come true and than some.

Did I say anything about brain drain. Did I say anything about young folks bored with the suburbia moving back into the urban cutting edge, hip and happening downtown area. I didn't did I.


Nope, because it ain't about these young folks. It's about the businessmen in downtown Fort Wayne who should be carrying Freier and his partner on their shoulders. Freier is going to make those folks a mint. Council members, attorneys,and other folks with property in proximity, like West Central Neighborhood, to the Freier project will go on the market. Yes sirree, Freier probably sees a billion in the making. And it happening way before he hit 70 years of age.

Mr. Freier you are the best thing that could have happened to Fort Wayne Wizard. Or should I say Fort Wayne, Indiana is one of your best friends.

Harrison Square Park Dialogue

The Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana convened a panel to discuss the Harrison Square Project at the brand new Allen County Main Library. The panel included one of the wizard owners, Jason Freier. Other members of the panel were Mark Becker, Fort Wayne Deputy Mayor, Steve Brody, Harrsion Square Project Member, Chris Schoen from Barry's Real Estate, Mark Pope, IPFW Athletic Director Dan Carmody, Downtown Improvement District, and Steve Gard, Oyster's Bar owner.

The citizens listened to a brief presentation and the panel answered questions from the audience. The questions were written on paper, and the facilitator read the question to the panel.

Some of the same questions were asked, and got some of the same answers. Mainly, the project is still in negotiation. All the details have not been hammered out. But for sure, the Harrison Square project will be a great catalyst for downtown development the panelists were in agreement.

The most commanding statement came from Attorney Jason Freier when the panel was asked about taxpayers dollar. Freier stated that some of the tax dollars that would normal go to the state from the city of Fort Wayne could be used right here in the city rather than go to the state.

Good Point.

But the most telling comment came from Barry Real Estate, Schoen. It had to do with the fact that our new city in the making, for folks to live, work an play will cost a pretty penny to live down there. In phase one of the project condos will range in price from $180 000- $300,000 apiece.

Harrison Square Voices of Authority

Who is Jack Swarbrick? Swarbrick wrote an opinion piece for the Journal Gazette about the marketing tools used to sell downtown development, the group of blue prints. But I wanted to know more about Swarbrick interest in Fort Wayne.

Jack Swarbrick is a partner in Baker & Daniels LLP in Indianapolis and former chairman of the Indiana Sports Corp. He wrote this for The Journal Gazette.

stated the article. So what is Indiana Sports Corporation.

Indiana Sports Corporation (ISC) is a private, not-for-profit organization that represents Indianapolis in the national and international sports marketplace. Created in 1979 to attract national and international sporting organizations and events to central Indiana, ISC coordinates and markets major amateur sporting events. Indiana Sports Corporation was instrumental in the process which resulted in the NCAA's decision to relocate its national headquarters and Hall of Champions to Indianapolis, and ISC supports and assists more than a dozen sport-related organizations in our city.

By targeting sports as a growth industry for Indianapolis, Indiana Sports Corporation's goals are to stimulate the economy, improve Indianapolis' image nationally and internationally, enhance the city's quality of life and provide opportunities for youth.

Since 1979, Indianapolis has hosted more than 400 national and international sporting events.

The Indianapolis sports community looks forward to welcoming the world as Crooked Stick Golf Club hosts the 2005 Solheim Cup.

Funding: Indiana Sports Corporation relies on corporate and individual memberships, private contributions, event revenue and charitable grants as chief funding sources. Call 317.237.5000 to learn more about sponsorship and/or membership opportunities.

Structure: Indiana Sports Corporation has a full-time staff and a volunteer Board of Directors and relies heavily on part-time volunteers to carry out its mission. Earl Goode serves as chairman of the board, and Susan Williams is president of ISC.

So is Swarbrick really interested in Fort Wayne becoming a great American city or furthering the business interest of the private not for profit company investors in which he served as former chairperson?

Go back and reread: Created in 1979 to attract national and international sporting organizations and events to central Indiana, ISC coordinates and markets major amateur sporting events.

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Swarbrick writes that you have to swallow the whole pill of redevelopment dollars. That Hardball is dropping $20 millions for downtown. That folks need to stop breaking pill of the redevelopment into just the $5 million piece representing the stadium. Because it's not being honest. And how does the taxpayer pay to match that $20 millions is yet to be revealed in this grandiose scheme? And this is the reason for calling Fort Wayne disingenuous?

But wait a minute, Swarbrick suggest taxpayers fund the private investors, and then the private dollars will follow:

When the success of this project spurs, as it almost certainly will, other development, the amount of private money being invested in downtown Fort Wayne (money that would never have otherwise been invested) will continue to climb.

But in the meantime, taxpayers are not to ask the hard questions concerning the spending of their money. Sounds like a good theme for a movie, Field of Dreams, but not at the expense of the hometown fans who are rooting for economic security for their families.

More on the Harrison Square Park and Downtown Stadium

After reading about the Downtown Stadium, something did not quite square with me. Jason Freier's, one of HardCapital owners fought to protect residents from eminent domain. Matter of fact, Freier was involved with the NAACP filing of an amicus Brief on the Kelo v. London decision. Yet here in Fort Wayne, a baseball stadium was going to displace some family with the taking of property to give to a private developer. But if it is not called eminent domain perhaps that justifies the deal. It now made sense why Greg Leatherman was going to door to door, cutting let's make a deal with homeowners. Leatherman, Redevelopment Director, was trying to prevent an eminent domain takeover to avoid perhaps offending one of the owner's of the Wizard, Mr. Jason Freier, himself.

Unlike the legal stealing of property that occurred under the Southtown Mall, (currenlty called SouthCentre) deal that used eminent domain. Leatherman posed as an undercover real estate agent by purchasing property in an underhanded business deal, to advoid the ugliness of eminent domain. The act could be viewed as a constructive condemnation of the area land that was marked for acquiescence by the city for the private developers. This would save money for the developers and the city.

The reasoning given behind the sneaky deals was to save the taxpayers money. Or was it? However, the sneak attack could be perceived as a way of circumventing Engrossed House Bill 1010 which required that property taken from such property owners should be paid 150% of its value.

This information was to be disclosed to those owners whom property would be taken and given to another private owners. Indiana Legislators create legislation as protection for homeowners from corrupt elected officials. Read the synopsis below, I really like the part about the attorneys involved in such deals receiving a flat fee up to $25,000. Who are some of the attorneys who were involved in this deal!?

Synopsis: Eminent domain. Requires a condemnor, before proceeding to acquire property by use of eminent domain, to: (1) establish a proposed purchase price; (2) provide the owner with an appraisal or other evidence used to establish the proposed purchase price; and (3) conduct a good faith negotiation with the owner of the property.

Requires a condemnor, except the department of transportation (department), certain utilities, and certain other persons, to proceed to acquire the property by use of eminent domain not more than two years after the condemnor submits a written acquisition offer to the owner of the property.

Requires the department, certain utilities, and certain other persons to initiate eminent domain proceedings not more than six years after the department, utility, or other person submits a written acquisition offer to the property owner.

Requires two of the three appraisers appointed under the eminent domain law to be: (1) licensed under the law concerning real estate brokers and salespersons; and (2) residents of Indiana. Extends certain deadlines under the eminent domain law.

Provides that if a condemnor fails to: (1) take possession of property the condemnor acquired though the use of eminent domain; and (2) adapt the property for the purpose for which it was acquired; not later than six years after the payment of the award or judgment for damages occurs, the condemnor forfeits all rights in the property as if the procedure to take the property had not begun.

Establishes procedures for using eminent domain to transfer ownership or control of real property between private persons for uses that are not public uses, including: (1) limiting the use of eminent domain only to certain types of property; (2) requiring mediation; (3) requiring that the acquisition of the property will accomplish more than only increasing the property tax base of a government entity; (4) requiring the payment of a premium to acquire certain types of property; (5) requiring the condemnor to pay the attorney's fees of certain owners; and (6) requiring the payment of certain other damages, if applicable, including business losses.

Prohibits a state agency or political subdivision from requiring that a lawfully erected sign be removed or altered as a condition of issuing a permit, license, variance, or other order concerning land use development unless the sign owner is compensated or has waived compensation in writing.

Provides that the land owner may receive litigation expenses and reasonable attorney's fees not to exceed: (1) $25,000 in a public eminent domain proceeding; or (2) 25% of the cost of the acquisition in a private to private eminent domain proceeding; if the land owner receives greater compensation at trial than was offered in the most recent settlement offer.

Provides that the landowner is entitled to reasonable attorney's fees if a proposed private to private eminent domain proceeding does not meet certain eligibility requirements. Specifies that certain persons authorized to exercise eminent domain may only do so to accomplish the essential delivery of services. Prohibits libraries from exercising eminent domain unless a specified legislative body in the library district adopts a resolution specifically approving the use of eminent domain for a particular purpose. Prohibits a privately owned cemetery from exercising eminent domain. Establishes a study committee to study eminent domain issues. Makes other changes and conforming amendments.

Did you hear what I heard? I didn't but did you hear what I heard?

I read both interview sets and was not impressed. First leading questions supported the blogger's position. You already know your position, built on information from the other side. I would rather ask questions explaining the project which would lead to other questions. Second, I would not take in a laundry list of questions for an hour and half interview.

I would have requested documents, documents and more documents. Documents answers some of the laundry list questions and provide a source for more relevant questions.

Next, I would structure my questions around the individual who would serve as the primary source for information.

Therefore, my questions would materialize from the folks in the room and the available material.

So, two questions, where are certain documents? And the funding sources?

This is my take on Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball interview, Starting with the first leading question,


Harrison Q is a signature project. It is a private and public dollar venture. The investment dollars willbe spent on Harrison Q in hopes of creating more foot traffic, which would in turn support the huge public investments, already in the downtown area.

The venture calls for more investment dollars from the public. What out of town investor does not what support from the locals? Nevertheless, this time public dollars will be combined with private dollars for mixed used project. Mixed use meaning not only a hotel,residential condominiums, street level retail, baseball stadium and a parking garage, but also the commingling of public and private funds.

Local officials controlled community input with planting certain types of projects that would be included in the mixed-use venture. Of course, those volunteering thought at the time of their participation some of these ideas came from their group, but city officials were planted in each group. Nevertheless, city officials and paid consultants compiled these ideas from the meetings and stored the data into three reports, Downtown BluePrint (2002), Downtown BluePrintPlus and Downtown Baseball Plus as marketing tools for private developers.

Because the public dollars are stretched in supporting the big-ticket items, the signature venture is needed to support these big-ticket items. Many of these projects are nonprofits. Moreover, to creatively support these projects they may become branded by the signature project. Branded meaning because their names will be visible. And the parking spaces of smaller nonprofit can collect revenue for charging for parking.


Because Hardball Capital is using their private dollars in this signature venture, they will be driving the development of the Harrison Q project. It makes sense that these businesspersons know more than the elected official knows or appointed officials.

Of course the Embassy, Grand Wayne Convention, Allen County Public Library are in position to take advantage of some of the decisions by Hardball Capital, but who will locally be a part of the project is in negotiation in the role Hardball Capital will play managing a public park.

The city will benefit from Hardball Capital driving this project from the shared revenue stream. This revenue stream is being hammered out as we speak in a legal document of Memorandum of Understanding in which all involved parties will have to sign.


Other public dollars will be similar to what we did in using the restaurant tax for Memorial Coliseum. Instead, this time we were able to extend the Jefferson Pointe TIF district to two streets downtown, Jefferson and Washington. We were motivated so that Jefferson Pointe Tif dollar could be used in the downtown area. The expansion allows us to use the fund from Jefferson Pointe TIF for public improvement on Harrison to the east, Ewing to the west and Baker to the south to improve traffic flow. Moreover, another use of the TIF fund would be to finance the parking garage.

This would free up income generated from the parking garage to pay for maintenance and operation of the parking garage. In addition, CEDIT dollar can now be lumped into one area instead of going into the separate councilman district and at large districts. This be an additional source of public dollars to commingle with private dollars.

Now if it is a success all the new business sales and income taxes will be limited to under a million dollar, more like $750,000.


The tiny businessperson will have an opportunity depending on Hardball Capital, on the other side of Ewing and Jefferson. However, Hardball may have a potential working partnership with the developers of Jefferson Pointe, RED, focusing on the big names and national chains. This would prevent any stores from competing with the stores or restaurants in Jefferson Pointe. In addition, if the tiny businessperson were allowed they would become renters and no longer owners.

Some local business will benefit, like architectural firm learning from a national firm and becoming part of a team in designing the baseball stadium of this signature venture. Other folks like construction companies, contractors, and homeowners in the West Central Neighborhood. Even the Holiday Hotel could benefit if it was to remodel and use the hotel for office space or apartments, which would sure help the new hotel.

By Any other Name-Harrison SQuare Project

I've posted some of my thoughts about the project known at the beginning as the Downtown Stadium, Harrison Street Project. I have since settled on names like Harrison Square Park, Downtown Marriott Hotel, Condominium and National Chain Retail Stores, but will more information some of these titles are subject to change.

The revitalization of the Downtown area has stirred up some heated debate within the local blogosphere.

Councilman Samuel Talarico questioned a local blogger on his qualification in sitting down to take a look at the numbers driving this project. WoW

If Councilman Talarico questioned this budding CPA, can you imagine how he feels about folks who are not number crunchers? I've studied and drafted a state budget with projections. And I'm not even an accountant!!! I've studied the law and represented clients in courts of law and I'm not an attorney !!!


There is another blogger out conducting interviews and posting the interviews along with editorials and other stuff. I don't find the interviews to objective. The questions tend to be leading questions, too general and not getting to the meat of the subject.

I think both bloggers are finding out that answers are not readily available.

The Sunday Funnies-Property Reassessment by your local government

Amanda Iacone reports on Fort Wayne.Com about reassessment. Iacone reports:

All of the property updates – about 130,000 – will have been mailed by Monday. About 20,000 properties had no change in their value and will not receive the forms, said Ryan Keuneke, chief deputy assessor.

I posted here:

The assessors offices are mailing out form 11 R/A. I know many of you want to believe that your leaders are honest people !!! But be warned because your new tax bill will increase and it has nothing to do with Fort Wayne Community School but greed from your local officials to build Harrison Square.

This notification form 11 R/A is an important part of the reassessment because it starts the second phase of the reassessment process. The second phase involves a review process by the property owners on the accuracy of the assessors assessment. Any property owner wanting to challenge the accuracy of the assessment must file an appeal in writing for review of the assessment on form 130 or form 133 within 45 days of the notification.

The mailing is not an update. This statement that your property has been assessed at a certain values based on faulty record keeping in the assessor office from years and years of abuse in assessing property is a notice. This abuse of power from assessors caused Judge Thomas Fisher to determine that it was so widespread that Fisher promulgated rulings governing a uniformed way of assessing property and a way to measure whether or not these assessors were playing by the rules.


So, out of the office and on to the streets, assessors had to learn how to assess property and record property. Time was of the essence. Going door to door many homeowners were not letting folks in or were not at home. So assessor birth a way to get the job done in the mandated time period.

The updates reflect changes in assessed property values. Many properties increased in value because the last time properties were assessed, local assessors used sales and market data from 1999

.

Nope, it was made up. Hired new inexperience computer techies and manipulated the system. And that's what they did. Many homes were sold to capture the over assessment creating sales disclosures that were based on misinformation. Homes were not worth the values and the unsuspecting buyers were duped. And these sale disclosures are what the assessor offices is using to duped the public in this year current assessment. That is if homeowners do not appeal.


Of course some property was assessed in the proper fashion but many inconsistency existed and still do to this day. The State was outraged at the greed of the local government. So the State legislators to protect homeowners from the greedy locals increased the homestead deduction, place a circuit breaker on the taxing amount, and required annual assessment.
From the State:

The circuit breaker became law in 2006 with the passage of House Enrolled Act 1001. It is aimed at helping Hoosiers by ensuring they don’t pay more than 2 percent of their property value in taxes. The goal is to provide predictability in tax bills and equity among Hoosier taxpayers.

The Circuit Breaker is slated to become mandatory statewide for residential property in 2007. Homeowners will not see the potential Circuit Breaker impact until their 2008 tax bill. The circuit breaker expands to include all property types in 2009. Taxpayers will not see the impact of the expansion until their 2010 tax bill.

State law now requires that properties be reassessed each year so that property tax bills increase bit by bit instead of a large increase every several years, County Treasurer Bob Lee said.

The quote by the Treasure Bob Lee, here's another take on it, from the state.

Under the old system, real estate was generally only reassessed every 10 years. That left taxpayers with a large change in their assessments every decade. Annual adjustments curb that large lump sum change in assessments by annually adjusting values based on sales

.
The annual assessment would prevent sticker shock to homeowners. And homeowners would be better able to prove their property values did not triple in value every year. This placed the inexperienced staff back into their offices researching sales disclosure form to increase their knowledge and record keeping in trying to make money for the city. Rather than truly assess property value to meet the budget.



The willy-nilly reassessment caused sticker shock and many high end tax payers were outraged and threaten to go to court. Deals were made. The squeaky wheels property owners assessment were reconfigured undocumented, just a number change in the system. The unsuspected just bite the bullet of the egregious increase. The number of appeals were reduced and unknown to the public. The meme-journalists only reports those folks that would not go away. The number of folks who demanded immediate reduction to the proper values of their homes and was cut a deal are missing in the informal appeal process.


Oh the heading,

Tax growth to hit 14.5%; past delays fuel increase

The tax growth is more than 14.5% and it's has nothing to do with delays. More from the state

Hoosier taxpayers could see an increase or a decrease in their tax bills after the annual adjustment of their assessment based on their location and the expenditures by local government.

In essence, the assessment represents a property owner’s share of the overall tax burden for a specific area.

Tell that to those who work for city government, as they over assess and collect field of revenue to pay for a hotel, baseball stadium......

In the newspaper

Rep. Jeff Espich, R-Uniondale, ranking minority member on the House Ways and Means Committee, said about 7 percent of that is a direct result of trending.

.That suggest that of the disclosed 14.5 per cent in property value increase is too high. But the real increase is hidden in the details.

City owned baseball park-Harrison Square Park

The downtown fortwayne baseball website has an interesting interview with Jason Freier, an attorney and one of the owners of the Wizard.

What I found interesting was this statement,

City-owned ballpark and related development, share some revenue streams with the City and assume some of the operating costs in the City-owned facility.

So does that mean the Wizard will play their games there and that the park will be used for other activities sponsored by other groups including the city? I assume such activities such as the three river festival, German fest, etc. So, I would take that to mean that the park will be leased to Hardball Capital for Wizard Games in exchange for their dollars toward the downtown development.

Harrison Square is a mixed-use commercial development in Fort Wayne, Indiana, that is currently a concept. It will feature a ballpark that will be primarily used for baseball, and will be the home field of the Fort Wayne Wizards minor league baseball team. It will possibly open downtown in 2009 at the corner of Harrison and Jefferson, and will hold 8,000 people. A recent poll of Fort Wayne residents suggests that they do not back the ballpark component of the project

from the online encyclopedia.


The other option for Hardball would be to invest in their investment, the Wizard, by renovating Memorial Stadium, the Wizard current playing location. The interview suggest the city did not support the team or its fan with the ill maintained Memorial Stadium as much as they are ranting and raving about in hope of bringing these fans downtown to support a retail component. Matter of fact the interview cite areas which did improvement in support of their teams.

If Harrison Square, for whatever reason, does not come to fruition, our focus would turn to finding our second best option to fulfill the aforementioned commitments. That, most likely, would be to work with Randy Brown and the Coliseum Authority to renovate and improve Memorial Stadium. Memorial Stadium is a facility, frankly, that was built with a minimum of amenities to begin with and that has not kept up with the times and is showing its age. The fact that Memorial Stadium remains a great place to take a family for a game is a testament to the incredible job done by the Wizards local management and dedicated employees, led by our General Manger Mike Nutter, and to the great job that Randy Brown and his staff do managing the facility.

For us to provide the sort of gameday experience our fans deserve, a very significant investment would have to be made to bring Memorial Stadium up to date. Less was invested in Memorial Stadium when it was built than virtually any other facility we are aware of that was built during the same time frame and no significant improvements to the facility itself have been made in the intervening 15 years. As a matter of comparison, the ballpark in Lansing opened just three years after our stadium but more than twice as much money was invested in that facility. Also, the ballpark in Lansing is undergoing a multimillion dollar improvement this off-season and a commitment has been made to put millions more in over the next ten years.

One needn’t look as far as Lansing to understand how out of date Memorial Stadium is, however, you just need to walk across the parking lot and take a look at the Coliseum--compare a suite in the Coliseum to those at Memorial Stadium. If Harrison Square cannot be brought to fruition, our goal would be to make Memorial Stadium a facility, like the Coliseum, that our fans can enjoy and that the community can be proud of. We just think that the resources necessary to do so are better spent
downtown, where such a facility can have so much more of an impact on the community as a whole.

Mr. Jason Freier is exactly right, city official do not believe in supporting what the city has already. So what the city is now doing is trying to save their risky investment of tax payers dollars in the Grand Wayne Center and the Library, by trying to get the baseball games downtown. And to entice the hardball capital company to go along for this ride, the city is giving Hardball everything but the kitchen sink. Why, so the city can use the money Hardball would have used to renovate the Memorial Stadium for the Wizard fans. Instead the city wants Hardball to plop it down in another long shot using tax payers dollars.

The fact that city officials do not want to invest in our schools is another example of how the city neglect its buildings, until they are required based on federal law. Another scheme was the building of the Safety Buildings with tax dollars that could have been used on other projects in the city. You know the one I am talking, the stolen land called Southtown Centre that cost over $40 million dollars. But the city creates these scheme to try to gauge and line the pockets of their friends. But Mr. Freier you would recognize such unethical dealings, being that you are a successful wealthy businessman dealing with a city in need of some serious funds.

Great interview.