The Community and Economic Development Committee met 05/24/2023. The one action item on the agenda was the request to approve a development agreement with Fox Commons Properties LLC for the redevelopment of City Center Plaza. The development would turn City Center Plaza into a mixed-use facility “comprised of housing, supportive services, healthcare, retail and commercial businesses uses.” Although the project was estimated to cost $33.6 million, the final assessed value of the project was expected to be only $17.3 million because one of the entities expected to occupy the building was a tax-exempt non-profit.
As part of the incentives to move forward with this project, the developer was requesting TIF support. The city will pay the developers $4.4 million over an estimated 15-year timespan, which works out to approximately $300,000 per year. This money would come from the increased tax dollars resulting from the improvements to the property.
The development agreement was approved 5-0 by the committee and will go before the full Common Council for a final vote on 06/07/2023.
The Post Crescent published a good article about the project.
Additionally, I have prepared a transcript of the discussion for download.
A fair amount of the committee discussion revolved around the amount of money that the city would be paying the developer because there were several different numbers related to different things listed in the memo which was possibly a little confusing.
Basically, once the project was completed and reached an assessed value of $17.3 million, the city would begin making annual payments from the TIF. Per Economic Development Specialist Matt Rehbein, “Those payments are made from the actual tax receipts. So, it’s not money that we’re fronting. It’s paid based upon tax receipts.” Those annual payments were to be paid out for 15 years and were expected to end in 2042. For those 15 years, 90% of the annual increment would go back to the developer.
There were going to be some parking needs related to the housing portion of the development, and the agreement included the option for the developer to purchase up to 280 annual parking passes for city-owned parking ramps. Community and Economic Development Director Kara Homan said that initially they expected all of the purchased parking passes would be for the Yellow Ramp, but as time went on some tenants might end up wanting to move to the Red or Green ramps.
The Community and Economic Development Department had worked with the Department of Public Works to look at all of the residential housing units that were currently being built and were expected to be built in the downtown area and forecast how that would impact city-owned parking ramps. Per Director Homan, there was more than enough capacity in the Yellow Ramp to accommodate the Fox Commons project as well as other projected housing developments in the area.
The committee spoke with a representative of the developer about whether they had been working with existing City Center tenants, but the representative’s microphone was not on so his words were not recorded.
As noted, although the development was expected to cost $33.6 million, but the assessed value was anticipated to only be roughly have of that at $17.3 million because one of the occupants was going to be a tax-exempt non-profit. The conversation was very vague about what that non-profit was or what it would be doing.
Director Homan indicated that the city intended to run a pilot program of some sort with this non-profit, but staff could not go into any details about that other than to say conversations were taking place. Alderperson Chad Doran (District 15) asked if the non-profit currently provided a pilot to the city, but City Attorney Christopher Behrens answered, “Because of the discussion and the nature of the discussions right now, I’m not going to answer that question publicly, because we are in the midst of negotiations with them. And also, because of respecting the developers and the sensitivity with finalizing their plans. I don’t know if they’re at a point to announce. And I’m afraid if I answer that question, it could be narrowed down enough to know who we’re talking about. So, I’ll, again, restate we are having discussions with that entity. And you can draw whatever conclusions you want from that.”
Alderperson Israel Del Toro (District 4) asked whether this development would be able to attract a grocery store that would be accessible to all the housing in the area. The developer did not have any knowledge specific to a grocery store, but Director Homan noted that Appleton Downtown Inc had a committee that was working on recruiting a grocery store to the downtown area. Additionally, Alderperson Nate Wolff (District 12) reminded the public that they could go to the Trader Joe’s website and ask them to open a location in Appleton.
[I understand that City Center as it currently exists feels like a dead, empty husk and something probably should be done with it. But it’s more than a little frustrating to see the city approve a development agreement that is going to cost $4.4 million in tax dollars without providing the public basic details about the project. This is going to go before the Common Council on June 7th and be approved without the public even knowing who the nonprofit is that’s associated with the plan or what services it’s going to provide or what the proposed pilot program is going to be. The public has no way to judge, based on the available information, whether this project will be good for Appleton or actually spur growth the way it supposedly will, or determine whether we believe the 90% reduction in this development’s taxes is going to be worth it in the long run. And by the time we have all that information, the development agreement will already have been approved, and there will be no opportunity for the public to provide meaningful feedback.]
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1101172&GUID=376E2B8E-B1D9-4E5C-9458-CC10FE363497
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