Here's the RDA agenda item:
4. Reports from Administration:And here's this evening's full council packet, for those who'd like to read up:
a. Property Acquisition – 2423 Kiesel Avenue. Proposed Resolution 2014-11 approving the terms and conditions of a real estate purchase contract for property located at approximately 2423 Kiesel Avenue.
(Adopt/not adopt resolution – roll call vote)
b. Land Transfer and Development Agreement – 2250 Kiesel Avenue. Proposed Resolution 2014-12 approving the terms and conditions of a land transfer and development agreement for property located at approximately 2250 Kiesel Avenue. (Adopt/not adopt resolution – roll call vote)
Curiously, this proposed project is situated within one block of another parking structure which Ogden City blithely "gave away" to Marketstar Corporation in late 2008:
Similarly, the City built a parking garage on Lincoln Avenue between 20th and 21st, and then promptly gave it away to the American Can owners:
Sodden questions:
- Is there another private company standing in the wings to benefit from a similar demonstration of Ogden City largesse?
- With Ogden City's new public transit plan nearing fruition, does it make sense at this juncture for Ogden City to be committing millions of dollars toward building yet another automobile-centric parking structure?
- What's the projected cost of the final buildout?
This Ogden City Lumpencitizens, is a project which must be closely watched.
Update 7/2/14 8:15 a.m.: The Standard's Mitch Shaw provides this post-meeting story, which reports that the RDA Board approved the purchase of the three subject parcels last night, and that the bulk of the purchase price will be borne by the taxpayers of Weber County:
The projected cost of the final buildout? This "minor" story detail still remains a mystery.
21 comments:
How many parking spaces in the existing structures are used? This question is deliberately similar to that asked when the administration wanted to add two more floors to the (still underpopulated) Boyer Building at taxpayer expense.
From a few days ago. Construction?
Good point, Blue Sky. Thanks for tying together that loose end.
That's better yet!
Cannot believe you missed the lede, Rudi:
"Junction City Pioneers Business Attracting Ploy: Buy One (building), Get One Free (garage that is.) 'If we build it, they will come' Mayor Tenspeed and the Council insistd. Ogden will become, he predicted , a parking destination resort. "People will come from all over the state, the region, to park here" he added. Asked if the project's name was 'Ramp of Dreams,' Mayor Tenspeed had no comment."
The usual process is attracting business and then worrying about enough parking. But then again if you don't build extra parking garages the mayor can't give them space away. if ogden is set on becoming a attractive place for bicycle riders wouldn't it be enough to have places to park the bicycles? The cynic in me has a belief that awarding these contracts will give the developers a reason to contribute to silent Mikes reelection bid.
Seriously, At this point I don't think I could pick 10-speed out of a line up. Maybe that's his plan. Cruise along below the radar and hug the terrain until reelection. Think about it. Does anybody know of one public comment he made about the Stewart case? Or any mildly controversial topic at all. ANYTHING? He like bikes and green commuting. FINE, I get that and support it, but I'm betting that's not in most peoples top three concerns when it comes time to vote.
All that being said if the choice was between 10-Speed and his immediate predecessor Little Lord Farquaad I'd still pick 10-Speed. Maybe, just maybe that's his plan all along, that enough voters remember just how truly bad it was before his election and that will be enough to gain a pass for reelection. Now that I seriously think about it just might work. BRILLIANT!!!
We need Homer and Klomp back.
Parking structures....20k a stall.
Sorry to be coming late to this discussion. Here are a few more points:
1. The purchase price for the three Cutrubus parcels is $1.1 million, while their total assessed value is only $229,041. So either Cutrubus is getting a hell of a deal on the sale, or they've been getting a hell of a deal on their taxes. Must be nice.
2. Nobody seems to be saying, or even asking, how much it will cost to actually construct this parking garage. And if you look in the council's agenda packet, you'll see that the administration is being extremely evasive about how they propose to pay for it. Keep an eye on your wallets!
3. The Kiesel building is about 50,000 square feet, so it might hold about 50 apartment units. One parking space per unit should be plenty, in the heart of downtown where jobs and restaurants and entertainment and transit are all within a very short walk. (Even apartments in the suburbs often don't provide more than one reserved parking space per unit.) So the Kiesel building isn't anywhere near enough to justify the proposed 320-stall parking garage. In fact, the existing surface lot on the Cutrubus parcel just south of the Kiesel building has enough parking to serve that building right now.
But still nothing, it seems, on the apparent whopping disparity between the assessed value of the land, and the price the city/county have agreed to pay for it.
Well, if my only choices are King Log (Mayor Tenspeed) or King Stork (Hiz-ex-onnah Mayor Gondola Godfrey), I too would prefer King Log. But are those --- do they necessarily have to be --- our only choices?
This is a easy $5 to $6 million project WITHOUT the land....and the land....pffffft....good old boy club...
I have a question about the city-county money to buy and build the parking garage. Is the parking garage deal in addition to the other proposed $1.1 million Ogden city RDA money to the developers of the building at 2411 Kiesel?
Yep. My take? This boondoggle is no doubt intended to primarily benefit the Kiesel Building developer fatcats. Deja Vu; Same old crony-capitalist story all over again in Ogden, in other words
Combining the $1.1 million Ogden RDA for the building and the $1.1 million for the parking garage is serious money. Thats enough to buy another unwanted and unused gun range.
The serious money will be the actual construction cost for the parking structure.
When will voters in this town learn that the mayor and the
city council do not direct what does on in this city, it’s their staff and when it comes to capital projects its the business development / community development
department. Basically they are all the same.
It was just 5 years ago that they literally “gave away for
free” a larger parking lot (2430 Kiesel) just across the street from this one that they are now proposing. When they gave that one away they had three reasons, one to keep Market Star in town (which by the way was a bogus claim as the company had no plans on moving with or without the parking structure at
that time), second because they indicated that the structure was costing the city $200,000 per year to maintain (and they weren’t smart enough to figure out how to increase the revenues received off the structure) and thirdly because they stated that the convention center really didn’t need all that parking, (which is now the reason they say we need the new parking structure). Only two of the then council members voted no, Jeske and Wicks. BTW Gouchner and Stephens were both part of the council back then.
The business development department (mostly the same people
there today that were there 6 years ago) want to build another parking structure with our money after giving away the other one, this really takes balls.They obviously do not care how they spend the tax dollars that we residents pay to the city and they obviously know that the city council can be easily manipulated into doing what they want them to do. Frankly I think their only motivations for what they do is for self-preservation of their job and/or to
taking care of their buddies or those that they think might help them in the future.
BTW in the same city council/RDA meeting held this last
Tuesday, this same group of astute business people that we call out business development department recommended that the city pay a company $50,000 to build a 3500 sq. foot convenience store on the north end of the Junction (on Kiesel as well). It
has not been mentioned in the paper yet but I’m sure our very malleable city council/RDA members have approved it. Now we are not only paying an arm and a leg for real estate to replace real estate assets that the city has literally given away but we are
also paying people to come to Ogden to build in our downtown.
And to answer Blackrulon’s previous question, yes this is in
additional money being spent on the building.
When is our city council going to wake up and start looking
out for the residents? When are they going to stop listening to these inept people and start questioning their projects?
Please call me anytime at 801.629.8947 if you would like the detailed information about either project referenced in this thread.
Thanx for calling me back two days later, Mr.. Cooper. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to our Monday morning interview and meetup!
Brandon,
Just got back into town. I assume you are from the city BD department and you want to help me understand. Problem is I do understand, and I read the whole report/package you all provided to the city council/RDA members. Are you suggesting that you did not provide the city council/RDA with all of the moving parts and the whole picture? What additional information are you going to provide me that you did not provide them? Provide that information here on this forum.
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