Looking at this rendering, it becomes painfully obvious that those properties on the opposite sides of evergreen and albert ave need a serious upsizing!!!
... and finally, that the unremarkable city hall building complex is squatting on a lot of wasted space in the downtown area... it would be great if they moved up abbot and built a more space efficient building across from Hannah on all of that wasted single-level commercial space along the east side of Abbot...
No, I'd rather that city hall stay downtown but build a more dense building with underground parking. A guy can wish lol. But right now they don't have any funds to relocate. But staying downtown will keep some office workers downtown as well as anybody coming for court or other city business which will overflow to the retail and restaurants.
Ratchet, funny you should mention the homes across Evergreen, because they were specifically talked about in relation to Park District during the last city council meeting. Apparently, they were part of the older Park District boundaries, but a public hearing was set this week for a proposal by the owner to remove those homes from the Park District project and only keep 341-345 Evergreen (where the 5-story building is going) in the district. He wants to continue to operates those homes as rental units. So, we're stuck with them for awhile.
Thats odd... I thought that the City of EL owned those rental properties. I seem to recall that they were considering knocking them down to put in a temporary surface lot while parking ramp under City Center was going to be built.
Jared - I envisioned the funds for moving city hall would come from the sale of the more desirable downtown parcel, but I really have no idea whether this would work. I agree it is best to keep as many city hall associated folks downtown as possible, but I expect the impact from their loss would be rather minimal, as there are not that many city employees, and many people (including me!) drive in/out to do their business with the city.
Okay, reading the memo again for this, it appears the DDA does own these properties, but has a property management agree with John Reynolds. The agreement appears to end August, but he wants to terminate the lease for 314 Evergreen early - a multifamily building at the south end of this area - but continue to manage 328, 334, 340 and 344 Evergreen, which were built at single-family homes.
What confuses me is that the property manager offers to manage the remaining four properties for another year after the management agreement is up. Though, this is probably because no one is sure if this new Parks District proposal will be all wrapped up before the August 31 deadline of the agreement.
So, who knows? I bet when the original property management agreement was written they imagined the project would be well underway by now. Thanks for making me go back to the DDA memo, though. They do, indeed, seem to own these properties.
Comments
Yes, it looks nice and light, I think this color will reflect the skylight and look very bright on a sunny day. I can not wait to see it in 3-D!
Looking at this rendering, it becomes painfully obvious that those properties on the opposite sides of evergreen and albert ave need a serious upsizing!!!
And that the city still has way too much surface lot parking in that area of downtown...
... and finally, that the unremarkable city hall building complex is squatting on a lot of wasted space in the downtown area... it would be great if they moved up abbot and built a more space efficient building across from Hannah on all of that wasted single-level commercial space along the east side of Abbot...
Ratchet, funny you should mention the homes across Evergreen, because they were specifically talked about in relation to Park District during the last city council meeting. Apparently, they were part of the older Park District boundaries, but a public hearing was set this week for a proposal by the owner to remove those homes from the Park District project and only keep 341-345 Evergreen (where the 5-story building is going) in the district. He wants to continue to operates those homes as rental units. So, we're stuck with them for awhile.
Thats odd... I thought that the City of EL owned those rental properties. I seem to recall that they were considering knocking them down to put in a temporary surface lot while parking ramp under City Center was going to be built.
Jared - I envisioned the funds for moving city hall would come from the sale of the more desirable downtown parcel, but I really have no idea whether this would work. I agree it is best to keep as many city hall associated folks downtown as possible, but I expect the impact from their loss would be rather minimal, as there are not that many city employees, and many people (including me!) drive in/out to do their business with the city.
Okay, reading the memo again for this, it appears the DDA does own these properties, but has a property management agree with John Reynolds. The agreement appears to end August, but he wants to terminate the lease for 314 Evergreen early - a multifamily building at the south end of this area - but continue to manage 328, 334, 340 and 344 Evergreen, which were built at single-family homes.
What confuses me is that the property manager offers to manage the remaining four properties for another year after the management agreement is up. Though, this is probably because no one is sure if this new Parks District proposal will be all wrapped up before the August 31 deadline of the agreement.
So, who knows? I bet when the original property management agreement was written they imagined the project would be well underway by now. Thanks for making me go back to the DDA memo, though. They do, indeed, seem to own these properties.