There will be a public hearing about the Belmont Promenade project on Monday 7/23/18 at city hall during the council meeting which starrts at 7PM.
IMHO this has to be one of the worst projects to ever come before the city.
Below is some info from the agenda packet from the 6/20/18 Special Council Meeting. The first three items are outrageous. I will go into more detail at the hearing. Suffice it to say the city will not realize any substantial sums for quite some time.
FINANCIAL INFORMATION:
Tom Kaleko, from the City’s financial advisor, Springsted, will make a presentation at the Public Hearing that will review information related to the project.
Reimbursable costs not to exceed $19,500,000 to be paid from:
• TIF property tax increment at 90% capture rate
• TIF Sales tax increment from City’s 1% general sales tax
• CID sales tax at a maximum of 1.6%
• CID special assessment in an amount not to exceed $.30 per land square foot per year, excluding right-of-way
• Consideration of issuing revenue bonds to fund the reimbursable project costs.
Now let's look at a few other things. The project was originally schedule to be retail and food establishment. One of the key players regaled us with all sorts of chest thumping puffery about the types (destination? upscale?) of establishments we'd get. Types, but not specifics. We do know that they put a brochure on their web site which contained much misleading info about the specific establishments. If it wasn't for the Shawnee Mission Post calling them on it who knows how long that would have stayed on line.
Now they want mixed use? Why? Is it because they don't have any commitments or even strong indicators from any upscale destination establishments? In many cities, including some here in the metro, developers have been known to produce written confirmation of commitments or at least intentions from potential tenants of these centers. Where are those letters or memorandums of understanding? I'm sure we'll get some strange reason why they can't produce any. To paraphrase a movie line: "show us the letters".
The financials are a slap in the face to the people of Shawnee
