Taxpayers will foot the entire bill for paving the alley and making storm water upgrades behind the new Kellogg Plaza & Lofts in downtown Emporia.
Project developers were not in favor of a cost-share proposal in which the city would pay to pave the alley while the developers would pick up the cost of storm water improvements for the alley.
After an hour of discussion at a Wednesday work session, the Emporia City Commission decided the city will pay for all the work, which is estimated to cost $75,000.
“In light of economic development progress and to draw in more tax money, doing this will benefit the community,” said Mayor Jim Kessler.
Cory Haag, manager of Emporia Downtown LCC, said while they are planning to take care of drainage needs for the lofts, they never mentioned or agreed to make storm water improvements for the rest of the alley.
“It could double our cost,” he said.
In December, three families announced they would be building a three-story building of commercial space and residential apartments in the 1100 block of Commercial Street. The project will be similar to the Granada Lofts four blocks down the street.
One of the initial steps for the project is for the developers to obtain a conditional use permit for residential living units on the ground floor. City commissioners didn’t see a problem with that request and will likely approve in its regular meeting Jan. 19.
The developers also need to have a site plan approved. In reviewing this plan, the city had questions about storm water run-off.
Haag said they will install a 15-inch pipe to handle the storm water from their property. While acknowledging the city has problems with drainage at Eighth Avenue and Commercial Street, he said the new lofts won’t cause additional problems.
Mike Novak, interim city engineer, agreed.
“It’s a one-third acre development in an 80-acre area,” he said. “It will have little impact.”
With that concern alleviated, the remaining dilemma was who will pay for improvements to the alley. Haag and City Manager Matt Zimmerman agreed the alley was in terrible shape and is an eyesore.
Zimmerman proposed the city pay for the paving, which is estimated to cost $67,400. That would leave the developers with a $7,600 bill for new storm sewers in the alley to carry the water away.
Haag disagreed with those numbers saying he had his own estimate for paving and that their cost for new storm sewers would be higher than $7,600. He asked that the city revamp the numbers in the next week so start of construction won’t be delayed. He said they are aiming to start March 1.
Zimmerman said it would not be possible to do the design in a week, especially since the alley is covered with snow.
In the nearby area, 14 of 18 alleys are paved and Zimmerman said there are legitmate reasons to pave this one.
“But past practices in this regard are the improvements fall to the developer,” Zimmerman said.
Further muddying the waters is an unclear section of the city code. It states if zoning requires parking, the person building it is charge of paved access to the parking lot. The Kellogg Plaza & Lofts are not in a zone that requires parking.
Though not required, a parking area is being built, so does that mean access to it must be paved? Zimmerman said that answer depends on how the code is interpreted and different people have interpreted it different ways.
Commissioner Julie Johnson said paying for all improvements may set a bad precedent. However, Commissioner Bobbie Agler said if they limit it to just the alleys on behind both sides of Commercial Street, it doesn’t set a precedent throughout the city.
Haag rattled off a number of benefits the Kellogg Plaza & Lofts will bring including the possible further development of the east side of Commercial Street in that block.
At the end of the discussion four commissioners reached a similar conclusion. They could live with paying for the work because of benefits to Emporia’s downtown and the Emporia State University area.
The next question became where to get the money. Zimmerman proposed using the street rehabilitation fund, which comes from a countywide sales tax. There is money in that account but other street projects may be put off, he said.
Johnson suggested it come from the city’s economic development sales tax since doing the alley work is primarily benefiting economic development.
Tell (anonymous) says...
"But past practices in this regard are the improvments fall to the developer" even our city manager knows this is wrong. Oh well special rules for a select few.
January 13, 2011 at 2:08 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
emporialifer (anonymous) says...
Who is in charge of getting Bid Quotes for the City? Just curious since Zimmerman's numbers and Haag's numbers didn't agree. Would be interesting to know what the difference between their numbers were.
January 13, 2011 at 4:20 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
matt (anonymous) says...
No wonder this town is such a mess. What about all the money they spent on the downtown water project and not even half of the meters that were to be changed to hot rods were changed. Once again a privat contracter came in got his money and got out. We paid them, and now we are paying city employees to finish the job. they were supposed to do. How much of a kickback went into the pockets of the EMPORIA EMPOWERED?
January 14, 2011 at 7:13 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )