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South Bend Redevelopment Commission Regular Meeting —June 14, 2011 Mr. Gibney added that it was very important that Mr. Matthews spoke to his cash investment in the Rink site. The city could have done a very convoluted Board of Public Works process where we might have sold Mr. Matthews the land at an appraised price and then the city would make all the improvements. The Rink site, no matter what it was appraised for, was sitting empty for ten years. It could be appraised at any dollar amount, but if nobody wants to buy it, it has no value. We purchased the Niles Avenue site in January as part of our negotiations with l st Source Bank. That property has been on the market for five to six years while 1st Source Bank owned it and there was not one offer on that property. The city was pressured to buy that as part of its negotiations to keep 1st Source in the downtown. A third site, the Wharf site, one of the most desirable sites in the Eastbank, facing the river, facing Century Center, has been on the market for more than a decade. The city plan, the Eastbank village plan and the Howard Park neighborhood plan all call for housing in these downtown areas. The best thing we can do is to get housing put there. So, we can hold this land for its offering price, or we can lower the price and get people living downtown, working downtown and we can collect property taxes again on these properties. Mr. Gibney noted that The Emporium did not want to purchase that Niles /Jefferson site. It was their customers who were using it for parking. The property is also extremely unsightly. We are willing to prime the pump and get the kind of quality housing that Mr. Matthews has proposed to bring people downtown. Ms. King asked what the timeline is for this 23