Sioux Falls Chamber supports the Parking Ramp Boondoggle

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Of course this is no surprise the Chamber supports corporate welfare and handouts, and has to attack the detractors on the council and from the public;

It remains clear that Councilor Stehly is adamantly opposed to this public-private development and Councilor Starr has some critical observations as well. While we will not predict the final vote, most councilors seem to view this project and the public-private aspect as an outstanding opportunity to achieve two goals – more public parking and a significant private investment in downtown. Further, they view it as consistent with the 2025 Downtown Development Plan.

As a rhetorical strategy in this political debate, some who oppose the project predict an incredible backlash against the city if the project is approved. They maintain lots of people are talking to them against the project. Proponents say they are hearing the opposite and their contacts and conversations are much more supportive of the possibility of leveraging a public investment with a private development to improve downtown in a manner consistent with the Downtown Plan.

First off, I do NOT oppose DT parking expansion, and I also do NOT have an issue with a private/public partnership. The issues are clear; Cost and Investors.

The cost is clearly TOO high when you compare to other similar projects across the country and if you read our own consultant’s report.

The investors are a secret.

It is also true many in the community are mad and more so puzzled by the high cost of the project. Proponents are obviously not listening to the public just the rich talking heads in town that salivate over corporate welfare and handouts.

Airport plans to build 2021 Modern Parking Ramp for half the cost of the DTSF ramp

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This was from a March 24, 2017 presentation Dan Letellier did at Democratic Forum (FF: 26:00 in the below video).

Notice they are getting 1,100 parking stalls for about $20-22,000 per stall. The Downtown parking ramp is proposing 525 stalls (over a 100 will be leased privately and not for public use) for $40,500 per stall.

Now if the DT ramp’s cost was even just a little bit more, I wouldn’t balk, but the proposed DT ramp is TWICE as much per stall than the airport.

As I have said, industry standard for building parking ramps is about $25,000 per stall. When this high cost for the stalls was brought up to the Community Development manager Daren Ketchum yesterday, he blew it off and said that he wasn’t concerned about the ‘stall’ cost. WHAT!?

It is pretty common in the parking ramp construction business to price parking ramps per stall. That’s just how it is done. Secondly the airport ramp is a very fair comparison because both ramps are being built on land that is already owned by the builder and the airport authority will be paying down the bonds using user fees. It is apples to apples.

Where this deal gets even more curious is that the developer of the hotel will be paying a one-time 80 year lease to the city of $1 million. This comes to about $1,042 per month for a 120 room, 13 story hotel. You can’t get a decent downtown loft for $1,000 a month.

So why so much? Well let’s start with the obvious. This is a taxpayer subsidized welfare to a developer, and mind you, a developer who was involved with the Copper Lounge collapse, which OSHA is still pending their investigation.

So why an extra $10 million to build this parking ramp compared to the airport ramp? Besides the obvious welfare, I speculate, it is because the ramp is on the bottom of the structure and will have to be extra reinforced to support the PRIVATE hotel construction. In other words we are subsidizing the hotel construction by $10 million.

I support downtown growth and a parking ramp. I do NOT support getting hosed by a private developer. The city needs to build this ramp for $10 million or build a ramp twice the size at a different location.

Tax Incentives for Economic Development rarely pays off

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Let’s look at some recent examples in Sioux Falls.

Uptown II; Taxpayers held the land for over 10 years collecting NO taxes for one developer, sold the land at a discount, gave them another 10-13 year tax break and in return we get an apartment building (that isn’t affordable housing) and a few parking spots for Levitt Pavilion.

Flopdation Park; State, County and City taxpayers will have spent over $30 million in infrastructure with only one tenant so far and NO signed agreements. And an employer that may provide 20 jobs at best for an Iowan Ice Cream factory.

Events Center; The building will cost taxpayers $180 million once paid for. While that may include the mortgage payments, it doesn’t include the yearly maintenance that comes from the same place as the mortgage payments, the CIP, a fund that is supposed to be for roads. While the EC may have a net operating gain, any of that ‘extra’ money doesn’t go to paying for the building or maintenance, it goes into a revolving fund that the management company uses. Than there is the supposed Economic Impact, since the EC has been open, tax revenue in Sioux Falls has actually gone down.

When you watch the latest episode of Last Week notice the part about the Fargo City Commission and how they approved a tax incentive for a company that was already moving there and said they didn’t need the tax incentive, the city commission approves it anyway. Sound familiar Sioux Falls?

But hey, without all these great amenities in Sioux Falls the rich millionaire doctors wouldn’t be moving here and building pools.

Sioux Falls City Council should vote against Downtown Parking ramp based solely on what we learned from secret siding settlement

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Last night at the city council meeting councilor Pat Starr chastised community development and parking for keeping the council in the dark about the proposed downtown parking ramp. The administration asked for an additional $30K for legal fees before the council has even approved the funding. (FF: 44:00)

This project continues to get delayed, and no one knows why, the public or the council. But they continue to ask for more and more money.

Councilor Starr complained about the secrecy involved, and rightfully so. I think with all of the kerfuffle yesterday about the secret siding settlement this should set a precedent moving forward that the council votes NO on all RFPs they are left in the dark about, as they have with the backroom negotiations with this project.

I think moving forward if the council and public are NOT receiving information about these projects before approving them, they should vote them down and demand transparency.

As I have said, if you are doing business with the public, that becomes public information, whether you are a private developer or not. This secrecy cannot continue, and we can’t wait for a new council and mayor to remedy this massive problem, the council must act TODAY.

Why is Sioux Falls paying for over HALF of 85th Interchange Upgrades?

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You may have missed this item last week at the city council meeting, buried as an item at the end of a 3+Hour meeting.

FULL DOC: 85-th-pre-annex.pdf

As you can see, city taxpayers are paying for OVER half of the proposed upgrades. If you also include the SF residents that live in Lincoln County, you will see even more of Sioux Falls residents tax money going towards this project. Notice the State DOT is giving practically nothing, and the other neighbor that will benefit quite a bit from the project, Tea, is throwing in only $4.5 million. And as usual, the developers involved are contributing very little, even though they have the most to gain from the project. So why does the city continue to expand (annexation) like Flopdation Park and this project, when we are struggling to keep up with our current infrastructure? Sioux Falls should be dedicating that $30 million towards redeveloping our core and central part of the city instead of building interstate exchanges for rich developers in the middle of a swamp.

FF 3:29:00