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SPECIAL MEETING NOVEMBER 30, 2010 <br /> <br /> <br /> <br />Mayor Luecke stated that they certainly want to be good neighbors to his historic church <br />and support worship services and other services at the church, so they will be willing to <br />work with the pastor to make sure that they have full access to their church. <br /> <br />Councilmember Oliver Davis questioned whether or not sponsors have been solicited to <br />contribute to this project. <br /> <br />Mayor Luecke stated that they have not sought out private sponsorship, however, with an <br />enhanced stadium there will be opportunities to do that. He stated that they are <br />continuing to look to other revenue sources that might be viable should the Council <br />decide not to enact or appropriate the full COIT or EDIT dollars and they have looked to <br />shrink the project as well. <br /> <br />Councilmember Oliver Davis questioned whether there were any private dollars that were <br />invested in the stadium in Ft. Wayne. <br /> <br />Mayor Luecke stated that he believes that there were some private dollars in the ancillary <br />costs of the stadium, but was not aware if any were involved in the actual construction. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter asked about the studies that were done around the stadium. <br /> <br />th <br />Bill Schalliol, Staff Member, Economic Development, 12 Floor County-City Building, <br />South Bend, Indiana, asked if he was asking specifically about the neighborhood plan <br />study or the facilities studies that were done. <br /> <br />Councilmember Dieter stated a follow-up to the studies that were done regarding this <br />project. <br /> <br />Mr. Schalliol advised that when they started this project three years ago they engaged <br />with the services of HOK Sports, who is a baseball, sports mega planning firm. They did <br />three (3) studies for them, 1. a neighborhood master plan; 2. a facilities study; 3. A <br />master plan specifically for the park. The facility plan that they did included what the <br />standards were for minor league baseball; what the deficiencies were at the existing <br />stadium. They took the 2009 minor league baseball report and integrated that into the <br />planning aspects as it relates to the neighborhood plan and the neighborhood plan has <br />really helped to be the driver as to the property acquisition in the area and used it to look <br />at the neighborhood master plan as well. He stated that they shopped that out to private <br />developers to see how it fits in with what market forces are and looked at it from that <br />aspect. He stated that they did the same thing with the facilities plan as well. Mr. <br />Schalliol stated that the final facilities plan was circulated to Council and made available <br />about a year and half ago and can certainly be re-circulated. <br /> <br />Richard Nussbaum. Attorney-at-Law, 210 S. Michigan, South Bend, Indiana, reiterated <br />that he serves as general counsel of the Midwest League which is a league of fourteen <br />(14) Minor League Class A teams of which South Bend is one of those teams. Since <br />1990 there has been an agreement between Minor League baseball and Major League <br />baseball and one of the provisions in that agreement governs types of amenities that must <br />be in place before different levels of stadiums. Class A Stadiums have to have certain <br />amenities, Class AA, Class AAA and it goes up the ladder. For a Class A Stadium there <br />are certain requirements as to how many seats you have, where the dugouts must be <br />located, where the umpire room is located. But more important than those there are <br />certain requirements as to lighting. Mr. Nussbaum is not familiar with how light is <br />measured, maybe lumens that must be reflected throughout the course of the field. Each <br />year a architectural firm is hired by Major League Baseball called Gould & Evans visits <br />almost every Minor League Park and they make a report each year and that is the same <br />report the Mr. Schalliol reflected on in the HOK report and described what the current <br />condition current status of the stadium at Coveleski is versus what the standard are. He <br />stated that while he was the City Attorney from 1988 to 1998, he was assigned the <br />responsibility by then Mayor Kernan to look at this report and generally what he recalled <br />is that there were always deficiencies and they tried to deal with those deficiencies as best <br />they could, but one of the deficiencies that occurred over and over was the lighting <br /> 4 <br /> <br />