11-30-81 Human Resources & Economic Development

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discuss that. The top two proposals put in a 100% more equity than the other proposals. For example, the third proposal only had half the amount of equity as the other proposals did. Some of them had debt service reserves to address unforeseen lease up times, or other things along that line, and others did not. It was very easy to put together five different parimeters whereby we rated the different proposals on their strength. Mr. Brademas 's proposal did not come out on the top of that listing, in fact, he did not come out second on that listing. We informed Mr. Brademas and all of the individuals who were not number 1 that we had a stronger proposal and that we reserved the right to talk to them again and hope that we would discuss it through again and that we were not going to take any further action on their proposal. Mr. McGann: Where are you time wise now? Mr. McMahon: This was in about April or perhaps February of 1981. Mayor Parent: It was probably earlier than that. Mr. McMahon: No, it would have been around that time. Now, with the top individual, we turned and said what do you need to fix the building further? That firm was one who had proposed office space in light of the fact that office space was only allocated to only 65% of South Bend right now and they couldn' t stand that kind of occupancy and keep the building out of debt. They proposed an alternative use to us which made a lot of sense. It was a hotel use which would house 132 rooms, and they had significance correspondence with a hotel chain previously located in South Bend and wanted to open because of the downtown location. They told us that they wanted a sole position with us as others did previously. We gave them sixty to ninety days in order that they may confirm to us that they did indeed have investors lined up and that they felt things were squared up. They came to us in July of this last year and told us that the deal had fallen through because they had some problems (which I cannot relate to you but they did withdraw their offer) , at which time we said we were sorry we could not go through with it but that we going to move on with the next guy on the list or were going to reevaluate. When we sat down to review the proposals we have received previously, in the meantime we had received a proposal from Mr . Robert Raker. We at that time told him that we were currently negotiating with someone else on the Odd Fellows Building, and we are not solicitating any new proposals at this time, and cannot discuss the building with you or anyone else at this time until we find out if another proposal goes through. He went ahead and felt strong enought about it and went ahead and submitted it. At that time, when the hotel fell through, we sat down with Mr. Raker to review his proposal (in the meantime, Mobile Concrete had dropped out and also received an inquiry from Bob McGinny who felt that he did not want to pursue anything further either) . At any rate, of any proposals we had received prior, Mr. Raker 's seemed to be the strongest proposal, not because of his expertise in doing it but because he was somewhat of a novice in this regard, but because he was proposing a concept used which was an ownership. He proposed a neat method of packaging the building, and based on the information furnished us by the attorneys working with looked very good and it was stronger than the Number Two proposal we had received earlier, and way ahead of the Brademas proposal. We talked to Mr. Brademas proposal, so we turned to Mr. Raker and asked him what it would take for him to put a package together. He said he wanted a letter from the Redevelopment Department stating that he was the only person we were gong to negotiate with, so we gave