Question and Answers to Issues Courthouse Square

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., 1J./17/y7 11:U3 (]5~3 5K~ b4y5 HUNAN K~JUUKL~S lQ.j003 ' ~ , Randy responded that the need for Juvenile facilities and the Courts were rated the highest by the public. ' But tb.e focus should be more on what you call it It is more than an administratioa building, it is a service center, and we need focus attentioa on tha~ ~ Randy Curtis added that to some degree the County has been campaigning for months and has been out talking to other communities about this icind of parhnership, particulazly after bond measures have failed. He, RG, and Gary Heer did a program on CCTV. They have gotten good coverage by the newspaper and may be able to utilize the County Fair in July. Hopefully by then the developer will be identified and can put strength to the proposal. The hurdle right now is to make sure the project is viable, and to continue to sell and educate the public whenever we can. If the County goes aut for any bond measure this fall, we will have to make sure we separate this project from the tax base, in much the same way that Transit did. If there is any feeling at all that they are funding this build.ing downtown, that could be a major liability. Ed Maran addad tl~t we caa deal with architects of great vision Randy Franke reinforced that we are not looldng for an embarrassment (meaning extravagant). Ed questioned the process, of who are we selecting, the conbractor or who will be doing the project? Randy Curtis expiained that this is the approach. It is a unique. Very traditionally, in public projects, you do select the arclutecEural team in one of the first stages. Y~u then do the design and get the specifications of cost and then go to the voters for the funding. This is unique in that we are asldng for a partnership of financing, development and design. There are still a aumber of issues to be resolved, even after we select this team. It is critical that we get this party identified up &ont and proceed in a partnership with them. What is lacking here, in tem~s of traditional projects is, while transit has the funding identified, Marion County has zero dollars set aside for this project The County has the assets on the Senator block. The success of the project is based on the partner identifying the retail possibilities. We are not selecting a ~, desiga No fum design for the project has been identified. It will be designed once alJ. the parties have been identified. Finance has not been determined. He has been getting a lot of phone calls of interest, but he doesn't know who they represent. ~ RG sta.ted that there are reslly four partnershi s. The fourth be' the Federal Government The have i ormed him that this kind of a project, talcing federal dollars and leveraging that into a public and private partneiship, has never bee~ done. The Transit District's approach is the same as the County's, but on the ' opposite side of the coin. Their task into get the bus depot off of I~'igh Sh~ee~ They will brin~z seven million _dollars to the table. They could have taken that money elsewhere and built a ha.nsit facility. It became apparent that the County needed some assistance and this was identiSed as a way to benefit the entire ~ community by using that seven million dollars of federal money to leverage a project that could produce wh~at the County naeds over the next twenry years without having to go back out to the voters. This is truly a mutual project that has to work for all parties. If this option doesn't work, then the Transit District~is right , back where they started, and no more the worse for it. Ann questioned if RG is on a time line. He responded that they have to have their application filed by September,1996. Triey have already filed everything, short of the final plan. The developer has to provide tha~ If this were to fall apazt in July, they would be scrambling. One million dollazs is at stake. The following September, the second would be~t stake. The other five million are earmarked. Transit is under a time crunch Randy added to the information on the sh~ucture of the partnership. The seven million dollars that Transit brings is finn. The only thing the County has to offer is the assets of the properiy, roughly five million ~v dollars in building and land. In order to make this project a reality, we have to bring private money in. The seven million and the five million on the properiy simply does not make this project viable. In addition we