Core to Shore Parking Garage

[Pete]

Watching the MAPS Board meeting today (9/22/16) they were trying to push through a resolution to move $10 million from the MAPS 3 contingency fund for this parking structure to primarily serve the convention center hotel.

As a reminder, this structure was not part of the original 7 projects proposed for this round of MAPS and would amount to adding a new project.

They (David Todd and Co.) are trying to get this voted on and approve moving the $10 million today, even though this had never been discussed in public or with the committee before today.

They will later determine if the parking would go under the convention center or along the Boulevard and to the east of the the proposed convention hotel.

Since this would be operated and partially funded by COTPA, they said they did the math and considering current parking revenues and outstanding debt, they could only borrow $27 million and thus want another $10 million from MAPS.

They also insisted that time is of the essence for design purposes.

In the end the committee tabled the the item and asked that this be further studied by a subcommittee.

[Pete]

Because they already moved $36 million from the contingency budget to the convention center budget, there is now only $7 million left for contingency. It seems they expect sales tax collections to exceed original projections and that's where the total of $10 million will be covered.

However, we would be completely depleting out contingency budget before the 3 largest projects (Streetcar, Park and CC at $551 million, or more than 70% of the MAPS 3 budget) have even started. The latter two have not even put out to bid.

[catch22]

Wow. What a completely irresponsible use of funds.

[Bullbear]

Don't like this at all. I have read some articles about projected tax revenue and they believe there will be a good size overage, However I don't think we should count on that and certainly not start spending on things that were never part of the original plan. I'd rather see it go into projects already included to enhance them rather than a sort of bait and switch type scenario.

[dankrutka]

The Convention Center has always been the least popular MAPS 3 project and the most important one to city leaders... it's not surprising that they find ways to shift more funds for what they want.

[Spartan]

This will be done to Maps 4, too.

I also like how the new State Fairgrounds arena came out of nowhere.

How are these projects being chosen for funding over other priorities? Are they making data-based decisions, and if so, by what metrics?

$39 million is not an insignificant project. Meanwhile something like an $8-10 million RR quiet zone takes a decade or more.

[Teo9969]

Isn't there still north of $5M left in TIF #2 for parking?

[Pete]

Isn't there still north of $5M left in TIF #2 for parking?

I'm sure they'll use TIF as well, we just haven't gotten that far yet.