07-25-13 Redevelopment Commission Minutes

Home Browse Search

South Bend Redevelopment Commission Regular Meeting — Thursday, July 25, 2013 6. NEW BUSINESS B. Airport Economic Development Area (1) continued... received all of the $5.6 million with some of the money coming as early as 2005 or 2007. We have approximately $4.8 million remaining. Ms. Schey asked that a paper trail be made available so the public could see when and where these funds were deposited and how they were used. Ms. Kolata responded that they are public information. Only a very small portion from a few years ago has been appropriated; the bulk of the payments came in earlier this month and is not appropriated yet. Ms. Schey asked if the $6 million that was received through grants was also in a separate budget from the Redevelopment budget. Ms. Kolata responded that a lot of the grant funds came in starting around 2000 and 2002 and were deposited in Fund 209. That also includes some money that was spent directly by EPA which did approximately $800,000 to $900,000 worth of work. So this is counted as a grant but was never received as cash. Ms. Schey wanted to confirm that the project to date has cost the city $26.8 million; with approximately $12 million of this was received from other sources and taxpayers money. Ms. Kolata responded that it is. When this project was started in 1999, the community came together with an Advisory Committee to develop a plan for how to deal with the older buildings. The Advisory Committee recommended the adoption of the plan, which then was approved by the Council and the Commission, and since then staff has been implementing the plan. The plan stated it would take somewhere between 5 -15yrs and would cost between $13 -$30 million dollars. We are right on target in terms of how long it has taken and what the actual cost would be to accomplish this. The variable at the time was the environmental costs; no one had a feel for how much environmental work would need to be done, but also the demolition estimates were low. One of the key components of it was that as a community, when Studebaker was at its thriving best, with 20,000- 25,000 people working there, they were not all South Bend residents. Staff made an appeal to the County, State, and Federal Governments, stating that this was not just a local benefit; it was a community and area wide benefit and they should help with the costs. Both the State and Federal governments came through with grants, and staff has used a small portion of the County Option Income Tax (COIT). Mostly it's been the AEDA TIF which was tapped, a very small amount of general fund, and the big source was the Section 108 loan against HUD dollars, which is being paid back by a State program called Community Revitalization Enhancement District (CREED). Money is collected from this program each year and is used to make the payment to Section 108. There are about 5 -6 years remaining on that loan. Ms. Schey asked if the property now has a clean bill of health. Ms. Kolata responded that it does not. There are ground water issues that are being dealt with. The buildings are down and those issues are taken care of, we believe the soil is remediated; there still is more testing to be done. Until all of the buildings were down, we could not get good testing done