IS IT TRUE September 26, 2013
IS IT TRUE the approval of the downtown convention hotel is all but assured since a sharing of information with respect to the financing and sourcing of the non-public funds that are going into the hotel has been made known to most of the Evansville City Council?…the way is shakes out is that a local group of investors lead by Old National Bank will become a 25% owner of the hotel portion of the venture for the sum of $11.5 Million?…the City of Evansville as proposed Monday night will subsidize the project with $7.5 Million leaving HCW of Branson, Missouri with the task of bringing $27 Million to the table with a combination of loans and cash?…given that an outside investment group is in for $11.5 Million this will mean the hotel’s initial capitalization will be $46 Million and can act as its own comp for assessment purposes should the Office of the Assessor choose do assess it that way?…once upon a time in the chambers of the Evansville City Council former Ford Center project manager John Kish did indeed say that one of the other three attempts at a hotel would be assessed at construction costs?…if this is the case the property tax stream just got sweeter for the City of Evansville by nearly a factor of relative 2 to real market value?…it will be most interesting to see where this assessment falls since even after the constitutional mandate for market price assessment there are plenty of properties in the county that are currently assessed both well under to more than double what they would sell for if exposed to the market?
IS IT TRUE the City County Observer thanks and congratulates the local group of investors along with the Old National Bank for making the private investment they have agreed to make?…this breaks the mold for how things have been done in Evansville when it comes to letting local government fleece the taxpayers with overpriced construction projects?…THIS IS THE WAY THINGS SHOULD GET DONE?…we hope you all recall our call for private investment and stock placement example calling for exactly that to happen over two weeks ago?…we hope this will become the new paradigm for public-private partnerships in Evansville and the rest of the country?…it is time for such ventures to all be more balanced with respect to returns on investment and absorption of losses?…we hope all of our readers realize just how big of a financial risk the local investors are assuming to essentially “bet on downtown Evansvilleâ€?
IS IT TRUE next up for Evansville will be the cash war for the IU Medical School?…make no mistake about it this will be expensive and competitive?…it was stated in Monday’s City Council meeting that only $85 Million more dollars can be bonded without hitting the credit limit of the City?…for the time being anyone who truly supports attracting this medical school to downtown or even somewhere else in the City of Evansville needs to shut their trap about dog parks, skateboarders, the Zoo improvements, the Mesker Amphitheatre, Centennial Park, or any fun and games nonsense that someone may dream up?…the Indiana University Medical School is a transformational project of lasting substance?…this is the kind of thing that can create a legacy?…it is also the first project in many years to make headlines that is not just a fluff project created to torch public dollars?…the price of the incentive for the medical school may only end up being 3 or 4 times what the convention hotel will be but the impact will be hundreds of times what the impact of even a Ritz-Carleton would have been?…this is the big leagues in a place that has traditionally been bush league?…we do hope that the cost of the project does not get bid up beyond the capacity of Evansville to bond?…if that happens we can blame the obsession of the last two mayors with fun, games, and borrowing?
IS IT TRUE that our own TOP 10 nationally ranked Signature School has a waiting list that is growing and getting so long it cannot meet the demand?…this is what happens when success is attained on a national level?…this is a good thing and we encourage the other “businesses†downtown to do something that gets them a TOP 10 national ranking for 5 years in a row?…success will follow?…that is how the Evansville Aces could fill the Ford Center, or Roberts, or a giant pole barn?…winning fills the seats and the application queue?…this hotel deal looks like a win for the City of Evansville if it all plays out as planned?…it has been a while and the win is needed but there are still many pitfalls on the road to actualization of this entire project?…watch out for reduction in scope requests and hedging of bets to start before the ink in dry on next Monday’s resolution?
It is time to let this hotel deal go forward and move on to the war for a truly transformative addition to Evansville. I readily admit to being “in the tank” for a Medical School and I will welcome it, wherever it is, in Vanderburg Co.
Downtown Evansville is the place I would like to see it, but that is based on emotion. Pragmatically speaking, the east end, near Gateway is probably the best location. There is room for a beautiful campus and development of student-friendly housing.
We need to start NOW working to get the entire community behind this and start marching forward as a unified group, not “splinter” interest groups. One of the best arguments we have in this fight is that all of the local “academic partners” in the project are located in this county. Deaconess, on the other hand, has its most modern facility in Warrick Co, and that can be a “stumbling block” if we do not put our best, most unified foot forward on this.
I just realized I sound frighteningly like the “della” of the Med School project, so I’ll shut up for now.
+1 It’s been a long time since I have felt good about this city. You’re no Della.
Elkaybee: Yourself and the CCO,with some other progressives should take an poll of the patrons taking part in the upcoming west side Franklin street food thing.
My friend’s here in your area tell me that’s really the largest non profit event in the area throughout the first full week of the next month.
They say it has an good footprint for an overall opinion poll to fit the true cross section of the surrounding population.
You should create your own poll and present that through the CCO on location there.
I’m sure someone else in the media will choose someone to poll on the location of the Medical center project.
Don’t depend on that,just take your own poll everyday during hours the food fest is open,and report that. Rate infrastructure,road access throughput and overall customer access usage per location.
Maybe the west sides Franklin street is the best location for some project?
“it was stated in Monday’s City Council meeting that only $85 Million more dollars can be bonded without hitting the credit limit of the City” Could have been $37M higher but you can thank the waste of money Johnson Controls Deal for that!
This is still a bad deal
Kinda like if I go out to eat I should let taxpayer pick up 15-20% of my dinner
Since I pay 8% tax on my dinner do you think other tax payers would go along with that
Give the hoteliers the land and nothing else , and actually that’s BS too
I guess we now have a reputation for being idiots with Johnson controls, Earthcare ,eh what the heck , give everything away and leave my stuff alone
Remember this city council people
IF IT SOUNDS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE THEN IT ISNT TRUE
‘(IU Med. School)…the first project in many years to make headlines that is not just a fluff project created to torch public dollars?’
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Well stated.
An important fact to remember that it is imperative that the medical school be located in Vanderburgh County. Even though the school would be tax exempt, there is still a huge amount of tax money that it would attract, as well as VC capturing the COIT.
If the Viet Cong have captured COIT, we need to develop a plan to free COIT, now !
I wish that the same effort would be put into attracting manufacturing BACK to Evansville. A hotel just provides more low wage jobs.
You are dealing with banker/politician parasites. Their only concern is for themselves not the people. Maybe someday the people will wake up to these leaches.
The money needed for the IU school is being exaggerated. It will not be a bidding war. Their consultant determined that downtown will be the best location and if you heard Rick Huffman on Monday, he let the cat out of the bag on the projected location. Pat Shoulders was expected to say that IU’s decision is not contingent on money thrown their way. We will need money for infrastructur and other amenities to get it downtown, but it won’t be a bidding war. I’ve always thought that certain people’s resistence to the hotel project was to help influence IU’s decision to consider the east side instead. IU will be downtown and it won’t cost an arm and a leg to do it.
I hope you are right on the location and it will be transformational wherever it is. If you think that Warrick County and maybe even USI will not make this competitive you are tapping the Kool-Aid again. It will be competitive and there will be a bidding war. It may not play itself out in public but it will happen. It is supposed to be solicited via an RFP which is the very definition of competitive bidding. Pat is a trustee of IU and a damn good one. This decision however will be recommeded by the medical school and the trustees will bless that recommendation unless there is something very wrong with it which I do not expect. The decision will be made on what is best for the medical school based on the respondents packages which will include infrastructure, proximity to teaching beds, and financial assistance.
Due to the fact that it’s a consortium of IU, USI, UE and Ivy Tech, I don’t think that the USI campus is a viable option. I think that Ivy Tech carries the most sway on the decision due to the size of their nursing program which will be ran through the new school. It’s been rumored for years that Ivy Tech will need to build a second campus soon and IUSME will be the perfect elixir for Ivy Tech’s problem. The east side and Warrick County are too far from USI’s campus and that would be problematic. Downtown is the best option to fit the needs of all of the players in the game.
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