The State News also has an article up about the planning commission's passage. You would think the city council should approve this pretty quickly now that it cleared this first hurdle, but I guess you never know. I'm with you on this one though micro, that area could really use this project. That old Citizens Bank building on GR and Abbot needs to go down immediately.
Jared mentioned the council was going to vote on this project, but the article below isn't clear if that happened. They don't mention it being voted for, but do say "is moving forward" so I assume it was voted for and passed? Honestly, this is a terrible news article. They don't ever even mention the name of the "Major Development" that could "change the face of downtown," they just keep calling it a "Project." They also say that Hagen is "alot happier" but then the quote of his they use that directly follows sounds completely negative. Pretty bad.
Well, it turns out that I was wrong when I said it was going to vote. Dates were set for public hearings on the issue, and after that then it should hopefully go to vote. Hagen is happy because his new property is being spared in the revised plan, but I think he is still mad about the other properties (which I'm not sure if he owns or not), but just how the city is going about acquiring properties.
The State News has made it known that there will be a "work session" for the City Center II project TONIGHT @ 7pm in Courtroom 2 of the 54-B District Court on Abbot and Linden. Ted Slaton has said it's in the courtroom due to expected high turnout from local residents. I would be interested in going, but I'm not in town currently. If anyone attends let me know how it goes, but I'm sure the State News will have some sort of blurb on it in the next couple days anyway.
The State News is reporting that City Center II's development agreement will expire on October 1st if it isn't finalized and some subsequent addendums aren't agreed to. Based on your post about the state funding, Jared, this shouldn't be an issue, but does anyone know if this deadline could be a real threat to the project? Or is this just a small hurdle?
I have a lot of confidence that this project will move forward, as it is basically being pushed by the City Council at all costs. The worst case scenario that I see happening is that the City extends the development agreement for a later date.
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http://www.wlns.com/Global/story.asp?S=8174445&nav=menu25_2
http://statenews.com/index.php/article/2008/05/residents_back_naya_bistro_for_city_center_ii