Gene Townsend needs to buy the Spartan-Yellow Cab lot before he can start on the project, and it looks like Yellow Cab has been reluctant to sell. He has until January 30 to finish the deal. Do you think he will get it?
If he doesn' the city would likely allow him to move forward. Then the city could take the property under emminent domain, or they could just deal with less parking.
This is typical business wrangling. I'm sure Yellow Cab wants to get the most bang for their buck, so of course they are going to play coy. I'm sure they'd be more than happy to move (plenty of available land for a cab company downtown) if the price were right. I know they are sick of their dinky and dilapidated facility they now have, that's for sure. There won't be any need for eminent domain, and quite frankly, I don't even like to talk about that. That should be the very last resort, and only for projects that would positively affect a lot more people than what Townsend's development will affect positively.
I heard that, too, sabatoa. It's pretty rare for them to send projects of this size back down to committee. I too doubt that it's something that can't be quickly rememdied, though.
It could have been requested by Townsend if he is trying to wait until he gets the property from Yellow Cab. Is anybody going to be able to watch the tape of the council meeting to see why?
The problem with watching them, is you have to wade through all the other crap (ie. Pollard and his crew) to get to the parts you're really interested in. If I happen to catch it, I'll let you all know.
Comments
Anyone know specifically what the problem was?
They have a video tour of the project up also: Kalamazoo Gateway Tour