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South Bend Redevelopment Commission <br />Regular Meeting -July 20, 2007 <br />7. PROGRESS REPORTS <br />Mayor Luecke reported on the Gameday project for the PROGRESS REPORTS <br />site on the NW corner of Jefferson and St. Joseph. They <br />have recently provided some additional information <br />about new partners for the project, including a strong <br />equity investor who would be part of the development at <br />two sites, including the one here in South Bend. They <br />have been asked to provide more detailed information <br />about those equity partners by the Commission's next <br />meeting. They are aware that it is time to move this <br />project forward and that they need to make progress. <br />Mayor Luecke also reported that there is another <br />developer interested in an exciting development in the <br />downtown. R.E.I. would like to construct a new hotel. <br />Their preferred site is the Jefferson and St. Joseph site, <br />though we have talked to them about other sites as well. <br />We are currently working parallel paths with Gameday <br />and R.E.I. on this site. We are also talking to both <br />developers about alternate sites. There's a possibility <br />the two developers could work together on the one site, <br />or the possibility that we could have two new projects in <br />the downtown. <br />Mike Wells and Jeremy Stevenson were present <br />representing R.E.I. to explain their proposal. <br />Mike Wells said that R.E.I. is an Indianapolis based <br />development firm, specializing in hotel development. <br />They are partnering with White Lodging which is doing <br />a number of hotels in South Bend. Together they've <br />done over 125 hotels. They have 40 hotels under <br />development in Indiana and across the country. They've <br />been looking at the South Bend market for the last <br />couple of years, especially the downtown. They are <br />very excited about the opportunity to potentially work <br />with South Bend's convention business to provide more <br />rooms. He showed an example of R.E.I.'s projects, a <br />Springhill Suites project in Austin, Texas. They like <br />urban projects and are currently doing a $300,000,000 <br />project in downtown Indianapolis. He then showed a <br />62 <br />