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South Bend Redevelopment Commission <br />Regular Meeting -March 28, 2008 <br />6. NEW BUSINESS (CONT.) <br />A. Public Hearing <br />(2) continued... <br />These extra properties that have been thrown <br />into the plan on Jefferson St., to me are, <br />again, just ways of getting out of taxes. <br />You'll notice, as Bill pointed out, that we're <br />getting a nice donation, but it's in arrears a <br />few thousand dollars in property taxes. What <br />we're getting on the one hand we're losing <br />on the other. I would like to see our money <br />better spent. You notice that this is going to <br />be $1. SM plus another $1M just for that one <br />corner site. We're not even talking about the <br />other money that's going to have to come <br />online to put the project in place. Who is <br />benefiting? We had a foggy proposal from <br />HOK which has been taken off the board. <br />That showed me nothing but parking lots and <br />very little as far as retail and other <br />infrastructure was concerned to address the <br />idea of who was going to benefit from this. <br />We've had the ballpark for many years and <br />there hasn't been any private sector interest. <br />I, myself, as a business owner in downtown <br />South Bend have shown up when the Cove <br />has had "meet your local business" days. We <br />twice set up booths at Coveleski Stadium. <br />Our findings on that, having given out gift <br />certificates, was zero. In two years of <br />passing out certificates, we didn't have one <br />single referral. Not one gift certificate was <br />redeemed from those types of ventures. To <br />me, the people who go to a ballpark are very <br />specific. The types of retail and businesses <br />that will benefit from that sort of investment <br />are very limited. I don't know that a 2,000 <br />attendance figure is all that great. We get <br />more than that just having ArtBeat or some <br />11 <br />