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Kalb Strikes Again - Harrison Square to be Competitively Bid?

Mike Sylvester has a copy of the letter that John B Kalb has sent to the Redevelopment Commission requesting that they not approve the recent Harrison Square agreements due to the fact that they may be in violation of state law if they do so:

Commissioners:
I am writing to ask that you NOT approve the subject resolutions, which pertain to the baseball stadium license and management agreements, because I think that Indiana state law mandates that you may not enter into an agreement for the management of a public facility without first making a public request for proposals. In particular, I direct your attention to IC 5-23-2-2(which defines “board” and which definition I think encompasses your Commission), IC 5-23-2-7(which defines “operating agreement” and which definition I think encompasses the proposed Hardball/ stadium agreements), IC 5-23-4-1(which grants the Commission the authority to enter into an operating agreement for the management, maintenance, etc. of the stadium) and IC 5-23-5-1(which requires that the proposed agreements be preceded by and pursuant to a public request for proposals).

What's interesting here is that the management of the stadium will likely be up for competitive bid. However, the operations are all under Hardball Capital's domain and were certainly not going to be competitively bid. In the unlikely event that the Redevelopment Commission decides to follow state law and bid this competitively, I would encourage all Harrison Square opponents to work together to put forth an independent bid. I've worked on a significant proposal or two in my day and I would be willing to help.

And I suppose a few more subsidies might be in order too - why not...

FOIA Update (Part 3) on Harrison Square Project

Cross-posted at Left of Centrist:

Previously (here and here) I have blogged about my FOIA request to the Fort Wayne city council and mayor Graham Richard's office. This request was to provide me with all communications between themselves and the Hardball Capital group before they purchased the Wizards and the city council responded by saying they had no such communication.

However, during one of the mayor's "Report to the People" meetings he told me that he had communicated with Hardball Capital prior to their purchase of the Wizards and he promised to provide me copies of all the relevant communications. The city attorney has since provided me with the requested documents and in my opinion, just as in the latest US Attorney General FOIA request, there appears to be some missing communications. I would like the readers to provide their opinion as to whether or not they believe there is a missing piece of information. I've linked images of these documents and I've also provided a quick synopsis of each document below. Note that some of the images are upside down - I was simply too lazy to change them and re-upload but I'm sure the readers know how to rotate the images.

Cover Letter(2/22/07) - A brief paragraph from the city attorney stating what they have provided

Mayor Richard Schedule Entry (11/11/05) - An entry from the mayor's electronic schedule stating that he had a meeting w/ perspective new Wizards' buyers (Hardball Capital)

Mayor's Post-Meeting E-mail to Jason Freier of Hardball Capital (11/12/05) - A quick thank you for their interest and the mayor tells them that Gregg Leatherman will be their point of contact for future data and meeting scheduling

Hardball Capital E-mail to Gregg Leatherman (11/20/05) - Freier states that HC is looking for info in 3 categories - general info regarding the business climate in Fort Wayne, Blueprint Plus report including info about tax incentives, info about other significant projects such as the Grand Wayne Center.

Mayor's E-mail to Jason Freier of Hardball Capital (1/16/06) - Mayor states that he'd like to join the media conference regarding the purchase of the team. Then the last sentence states - "I will be in touch soon about the other issues".

Jason Freier E-mail to Mayor Richard (2/10/06) - Discussion about scheduling a press conference so all the necessary people can be present

John Perlich E-mail to Jason Freier (2/13/06) - Provides Hardball Capital w/ the contact info for the various media outlets

John Perlich E-mail to Jason Freier (2/17/06) - More contact info

Now let's go back to the 1/16/06 e-mail from the mayor to HC; the problem is we have no idea what these "other issues" are. There are no communications for almost 2 months and there is nothing after this e-mail to suggest what the "other issues" were. This could be no big deal but when reading these e-mails this glaring gap (in time as well as information) sticks out like a sore thumb.

I will be sending a request to the city attorney tomorrow to provide any relevant information they might have in regards to these apparent missing communications.

Fort Wayne Leaders Simultaneously Support and Undermine Harrison Square Project

Cross-posted at Left of Centrist

Over at Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball they have posted the powerpoint presentations given by the different councilmembers. In Talarico and Pape's presentation, Slide 15 shows that Hardball Capital is projecting 200 events per year in the proposed downtown stadium. I wonder if they know that the city of Fort Wayne is actively COMPETING w/ them?

I'm staring at a contract the city partially paid for (provided to me through the mayor's office and IPFW) to try and find uses for Memorial Stadium in the event a stadium is built downtown. These alternate uses are in direct competition with what the Hardball Capital group said they want to do w/ the Harrison Square stadium.

Here's an excerpt from the contract given to the CSL consulting group:

"Various potential stadium renovation and reconfiguration alternatives will be discussed, providing feedback related to a number of potential development scenarios. In addition, survey participants will be asked to assess their interest in utilizing Memorial stadium as opposed to the proposed new downtown ballpark."

Is Hardball Capital aware of this consulting contract? Why in the world would the city be spending $30 Million on a new stadium only to try and find ways that the old stadium can compete w/ the new one? Here are some of the potential uses cited in the contract:

-Development of a hybrid sports/amphitheater venue
-Reconfigured baseball stadium that could also accommodate other sports such as football, soccer and lacrosse
-Fort Wayne Fever Soccer
-Local collegiate athletics

I think those of us that attended the YLNI panel discussion remember Hardball Capital talking about these very same uses for Harrison Square. Thus, the reuse of Memorial Stadium would DIRECTLY compete w/ Harrison Square. While I'm not the biggest supporter of the Harrison Square project, I certainly don't think the city should be financing it's construction while simultaneously undermining it's potential use...

YLNI Public Discussion On Harrison Square

Cross-Posted at Left of Centrist:

Tonight I attended the Young Leaders of Northeast Indiana's panel discussion on Harrison Square held at the downtown library. They had a panel of 7 people - Mark Becker, Fort Wayne deputy mayor; Steve Brody, Harrison Square project manager; Dan Carmody, president of the Downtown Improvement District; Mark Pope, athletic director at IPFW; Steve Gard, owner of the Oyster Bar; and Wizards owners Jason Freier, CEO of Hardball Capital, and Chris Schoen, chairman of Barry Real Estate.

The meeting started by Becker and Brody commenting on various aspects of the project and then the entire panel took questions from the audience. The questions had to be submitted in writing and I thought this was a fantastic idea because it took the emotion and grandstanding out of the discussion. It also provided the panel an opportunity to answer more questions than would've otherwise been addressed. The downside of the panel discussion was that not one skeptic was on the panel. If this were being held by the administration then I could understand the omission but considering it was being held by a private community organization there really is no excuse. Especially when you take into account that two of the panelists (Pope and Gard) provided next-to-nothing towards the discussion.

However, I'm happy to report that while most of the details I've been waiting for weren't available, there WAS some new information given.

1. Mark Becker stated that 80% of the project funds will be generated by the project or TIF and 20% will be from CEDIT

2. Steve Brody said that the hotel details are still in discussion and should be wrapped up in the next several weeks. He also said that details were still being worked out between the city and Hardball Capital and that he expected those to be done in the next 2-3 weeks. Then he stated that he felt the project would be officially introduced to city council in the 2nd week of April with the hopes of construction commencing in late Summer or early Fall. I personally think this is a very aggressive timeline and I hope they do not rush the process just to meet these arbitrary dates.

3. Jason Freier said that since the city has already acquired the land they can "masterplan" the project and that this is a significant advantage over the piecemeal approach taken by other cities. He also said that they are trying to utilize the stadium as much as possible including large concerts, local bands, theatre and possibly football (the right field fence is being pushed back to accommodate a football field). He also mentioned that the structure will be grated such that it sits no higher than the Grand Wayne Center.

4. Chris Schoen said he thought the condos would range from 850-1200 sq ft and cost around $180k-$280k. Said the first floor of the building would be retail with floors 2-4 (and possibly 5) being used for condos. He also said that half the units would face the ballpark and all units would have balconies and a brick facade. He also said that he felt the downtown area would still have a ways to go before they could attract a grocery store even after the Phase1 development.

5. Jason Freier said that stadium operation is usually done by the city but they are willing to absorb a "significant portion" of operating costs. They will also contribute annually to a capital improvement fund that will help maintain the stadium over the 20 year lease period. He also said that the cheapest tickets will be less than the current cheapest ticket prices at the current stadium.

6. Mark Becker said that $10M in state CRED money goes away by the end of the year if they don't have a project in place.

7. 300K in attendance is the number being bantered around by everyone involved - this seems too high to me and especially in the long term.

8. Jason Freier reads the Downtown Fort Wayne Baseball Blog

9. HOK will design the stadium and those on the panel said they were the best in business

10. Dan Carmody said "Downtown ain't compelling". Of course even if you agree w/ that (which I don't), he's been the one in charge of correcting that problem.

Now my comments. My submitted question was:

"Will the city provide any long term benchmarks that we can use to judge the success of the project by?"

Becker stated that they would measure the amount of private investment downtown including the number of new and renovated homes. Unfortunately this answer shows that he either misunderstood the question or simply doesn't understand the concept of benchmarks. What he's referring to are the MEASURABLES by the which the benchmarks are judged. In other words the benchmarks are goals such as the AMOUNT of private investment EXPECTED. Without benchmarks it's very difficult to judge whether or not a project was successful and ultimately hold people accountable. Of course very few in government seem to take the idea of benchmarks and measurables seriously.

Next, there seems to be a lot of talk about retaining and attracting young professionals to the area and that somehow this project will help. I disagree with the premise of that argument. The truth is Fort Wayne has a shortage of JOBS for these people. If we had more jobs then more people would stick around. The idea that we're going to develop downtown into one that will compete with Indianapolis or Chicago is implausible. I truly don't see how this project will help CREATE JOBS. Will it help Lincoln Financial retain a few more younger workers? Probably. But for the investment we're making we could directly provide around 100 well-paying jobs for 5 years. If we're going to invest this money then we should be DAMN SURE we can do MUCH better than that and I haven't seen any argument that would convince me of that.

Finally, there was nothing presented that would remove me from the list of skeptics. But I am still patiently awaiting the details before making a final judgement...