Standard-Examiner: City Incentives Sought for Kiesel Building

Big shot developer proposes $1.12 million taxpayer bailout

Troubling Standard-Examiner story brought to our attention by regular Weber County Forum contributor Smaatguy, who wryly remarks, "Good lard...the nonsense never ceases...". Here's the lede:

OGDEN — A development company wants to revitalize one of Ogden’s most historic downtown buildings, but before it does so, it wants the city to pony up more than a million dollars in incentives.
Salt Lake City-based Lotus Residential Partners wants to renovate the historic Kiesel Building in Ogden, located at 2411 Kiesel Ave.
The company plans to develop the building into an “’upscale urban-loft” style apartment complex, with approximately 50 separate apartments and 11,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. Lotus has developed several similar projects in the Salt Lake City area and this isn’t the first time the company is dealing in Ogden.

Read up folks:

• City incentives sought for Kiesel Building

This matter appeared on the Ogden City Council agenda on Tuesday, folks:

• City Council-RDA Special Session

Down in the SE comments section, the ever sharp-eyed and alert comments board regular Bob Becker "nails it," wethink:

Isn't Godfrey Towers on the corner one block east still largely unleased, along with much of the ground level retail space at the Junction ? And more along Washington Blvd a block in each direction? Does that not at least suggest Ogden in that neighborhood is already significantly overbuilt in re: retail space given current economuc conditions? And the investors want the city to subdize more? What's that old adage about the first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is to stop digging? [...]
Paragraph five, in which Lotus Residential Partners explains why it wants a taxpayer funded bailout of its investment in the Kiesel property is a real doozy. Let me attempt a plain English translation: (a) "Inflated aquisition costs" means, I suspect, "rats, we paid too much for the building." (b) "depressed rental rates" seems to mean "Ooops! We just noticed there's a glut of rental units hereabouts and so we're not going to be able to charge the rents we thought we could." (c) "A gap in revenues and expenses" presumably means something like "we're going to lose money on this deal unless we can convince the Council to pony up a seven figure publuc subsidy." That about it? Or close?

We'll be keeping an eagle eye on this story as it develops, of course.

As an added bonus, we provide below the email and telephone contact links of our Ogden City government elected officials, for the convenience of those gentle readers who'd like to throw in their own 2¢, concerning the "wisdom" of this proposed developer bailout:

• Contact Ogden City Elected Officials

Don't let the cat get your tongues, O Gentle Ones...