Funny how some things don’t change in community development even with Jeff and Mutt gone.
There is a big announcement on Monday about the first project in the RR Redevelopment area, and mums the word. (Rumor has it that members of the Billion family who own the adjacent 8th and RR building won the RFP. Not sure if this is true, it could be a myriad of developers, but I do know they were very interested in the property). But like the former administration, the council was left out of the negotiations. In other words, they have NO idea who was picked, or why they were picked, but need to vote to approve the selection.
Apparently we haven’t learned much about the RFP process and how secrecy hurts that process.
I also find the timing of this announcement interesting after hearing TenHaken’s COS, Beck, talk in the news about better ‘educating’ the public about the value of TIFs. Sorry, Erica, you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. It has been proven time and time again, all a TIF really is, is a tax rebate for the developer building the project, and by the time the TIF matures, that developer has sold the property and moved on, while getting a massive discount.
But hasn’t the blight already been removed? (Best they throw some old oily tainted railroad ties around the area until the Council says, “Yea,” huh?)