public parking spaces - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-29T10:05:01Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/public+parking+spacesDelray Beach: CRA ignores its own policy, OKs subsidy for iPichttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-cra-ignores-its-own-policy-oks-subsidy-for-ipic2017-03-29T20:04:11.000Z2017-03-29T20:04:11.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><br /> <br /> A city agency ceded to the demands of the proposed iPic theater and agreed to reimburse its owner $400,000, contradicting its 15-month-old policy of not subsidizing downtown projects east of Swinton Avenue.<br /> The Delray Beach Community Redevelopment Agency members also agreed to provide at least $75,000 annually to cover the costs of maintaining 90 public parking spaces in the iPic garage. The early March vote was 6-1, with CRA member Daniel Rose saying no. <br /> Rose wanted safeguards attached to the assistance agreement in case iPic failed to move its headquarters, sold a percentage of its company or failed to pay its real estate taxes. David Tolces, the CRA attorney at the meeting, said the conditions were part of the sales contract. If iPic failed to meet them, the CRA could take the theater owner to court, Tolces said. When complete in 2020, the iPic complex will boast 497 luxury seats in eight screening rooms with a total of 44,979 square feet and a 42,446-square-foot office building where iPic has agreed to move its corporate headquarters and occupy 20,000 square feet for five years. <br /> The development also will include 7,847 square feet of retail space and a multilevel garage with 326 spaces, providing a minimum of 90 public spaces. The project sits just south of Atlantic Avenue, between Southeast Fourth and Fifth avenues.<br /> At the March 9 CRA meeting, 13 people, including iPic attorney Bonnie Miskel, commented on the project. Miskel gave an impassioned plea that iPic has met every deadline and blamed the city for holding up the valet plan. But a March 10 memo from an assistant city attorney disputes that explanation, saying Miskel and iPic were not responsive to repeated requests to sign documents and present the valet plan.<br /> At the prior CRA meeting in February, Miskel said iPic had responded in 2013 to a proposal that asked for 50 public spaces. The sales contract written later with the city, though, called for 90 public spaces. The $400,000 would cover a portion of the cost of providing the 40 extra spaces, Miskel said.<br /> Six people who were in favor of the theater urged the CRA board to resolve the outstanding issues. <br /> “The CRA made the best deal in town for those [40] spaces by offering 30 cents on the dollar for the spaces. It’s not a subsidy,” said Bill Branning, the vice chairman/advocacy for the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce and former CRA member.<br /> Two residents with real estate and finance backgrounds spoke against the subsidy. <br /> “Stop the corporate welfare tonight by voting no,” said Ken MacNamee, a CPA who was a chief financial officer for a Pennsylvania multifamily housing developer and vice president of two thrifts. He’s also a frequent critic of the commission, but he has saved the city money when pointing out no-bid contracts.<br /> “Delray’s minority community has been given the short end of the stick while the downtown has thrived and flourished,” he said. “There shouldn’t be an additional CRA dollar spent on the downtown commercial development until the alleys and sidewalks are completed in the residential neighborhoods.”<br /> At their Jan. 14, 2016, meeting, the CRA members decided unanimously to pull back their developer infrastructure assistance agreements from covering the entire district, a 1,961-acre area from the interstate to the beach. The new incentive tool would not be given to any downtown projects east of Swinton Avenue and saved for West Atlantic Avenue, where the agency wanted to encourage development. <br /> In early February 2016, the CRA executive director sent a letter to the proposed Atlantic Crossing developers advising them of the change in the incentives. The program they applied for in August 2014, when the agency was run by a different leader, ended Sept. 30, 2015. <br /> Allen “Sandy” Zeller, a semi-retired real estate and land use attorney in New Jersey, said, “I don’t understand why iPic is now being considered under the DIA program when that program was eliminated in January 2016 for the areas east of Swinton.”<br /> Zeller returns to New Jersey one week a month to handle redevelopment work for Deptford Township. He also has represented the redevelopment agencies in three New Jersey cities — Camden, Atlantic City and Cherry Hill.<br /> Under the terms of the Delray Beach CRA assistance program, iPic will use “good faith” efforts to hire at least 20 percent of the permanent theater staff from the local community. The efforts will include holding two job fairs. Tolces requested this condition: that iPic file semi-annual reports on its good-faith efforts to the CRA.<br /> Separately, iPic and CRA staff are still searching for 90 nearby parking spaces that customers and employees can use while the project is under construction.</p></div>Delray Beach: Tax-dollar incentives an issue in iPic discussionshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/delray-beach-tax-dollar-incentives-an-issue-in-ipic-discussions2017-03-01T17:48:41.000Z2017-03-01T17:48:41.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Jane Smith</strong><br /><br /> The iPic development team is asking Delray Beach’s Community Redevelopment Agency for more money, even though it has not closed on its contract to buy the 1.6 acres for $3.6 million from the agency. <br /> The seventh amended contract had a Jan. 31 deadline, but the agency’s attorney said the contract was still valid. The closing date will be 30 days after iPic secures all of its permits, according to the CRA attorney.<br /> For the proposed eight-screen, luxury movie theater at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Federal Highway, iPic wants to charge the Delray Beach CRA for its share of operating and maintaining 90 public parking spaces in the project’s garage. <br /> That annual cost was not adjusted for inflation, which the iPic owners want.<br /> Then, the theater owners want to be repaid for providing 40 extra spaces, required by the city for a total of 90, with $400,000 in tax dollars spread over 10 years after the project is finished. <br /> The 90 public spaces could be sold to the CRA as space for condos, iPic’s attorney said. That price was not revealed at the Feb. 23 CRA meeting, nor was information provided on how that concept would work. <br /> The four board members agreed to let their staff and the iPic attorneys continue negotiating and bring it back at their March 9 meeting. The board members received only partial details at 2 p.m. on their meeting day. <br /> At the start of the Feb. 23 meeting, iPic’s attorney, Bonnie Miskel, said, “My client bid on a proposal that required 50 public parking spaces.”<br /> The iPic CEO also attended. “We were supposed to build 50 spaces, now we are building 40 extra parking spaces,” said Hamid Hashemi.<br /> The Delray Beach City Commission had to approve the project, which it did in March 2016.<br /> “Specifically, the developer, at the time of receiving approval, understood and agreed to construct an additional (40) spaces to correct what was, in my view, a flawed request for proposal in this regard,” Mayor Cary Glickstein wrote in an email on Feb. 24. He voted for the project.<br /> Commissioner Shelly Petrolia, who voted against the approval, attended the Feb. 23 CRA meeting. <br /> “I was shocked at what I witnessed at the CRA meeting,” she said. “I had no idea that additional incentives were in the mix when they got such a sweetheart deal on the property and the alleys for free.”<br /> CRA Chairman Reggie Cox said, “The extra spaces were agreed to. … At this point in the project you want to recoup some of that cost, I understand that.”<br /> But that incentive of taxpayer dollars is not sitting well with some Delray Beach residents.<br /> “It is commonly accepted in Delray Beach that development east of Swinton Avenue does not need to be subsidized by taxpayers,” said real estate broker Chris Davey. “The CRA should take revenue from that area and use it in the northwest and southwest communities.”<br /> Davey voted against iPic in July 2015 when he was on the city’s Planning & Zoning Board. At that meeting, he said, “They are trying to put 10 pounds of something into a 5-pound bag.” <br /> With a projected completion date of 2020, the iPic complex will contain a 44,479-square-foot movie theater, 43,880 square feet of Class A office space, 7,487 square feet of retail and a multilevel parking garage with 326 spaces. The bottom two floors will have 90 public spaces that are metered. The city will collect that revenue.<br /> The CRA staff and iPic have been negotiating the parking cost sharing agreement since December. Initially, iPic had asked for $460,000 annually, which was reduced to $115,348 after taxes and debt service were eliminated.</p>
<p> The CRA’s consultant, PMG Associates of Deerfield Beach, recommended paying $74,996 annually with just $50 set aside for reserves. The consultant based the amount on a new garage that Fort Lauderdale is building at its beach. It’s a municipal garage but with added touches, said Phil Gonot of PMG.</p></div>