DEMOLISHED BUILDING TO BE DECLARED "BLIGHTED"
BLIGHT DESIGNATION SOUGHT FOR $50 / SQ. FT. DOWNTOWN LAND
"DETERIORATING" PARKING STRUCTURE ALREADY GONE
$20 MILLION TAX-EXEMPT BONDS SOUGHT FOR NEW PARKING DECK
Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com
By Michael Horne
And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team
"DETERIORATING" PARKING STRUCTURE ALREADY GONE
$20 MILLION TAX-EXEMPT BONDS SOUGHT FOR NEW PARKING DECK
Special to the Readers of Milwaukeeworld.com
By Michael Horne
And The Milwaukee World Hound Dog Team
The former U.S. Bank parking garage at 716 E. Clybourn St. (corner N. Van Buren St.) is to be declared blighted at the next meeting of the Redevelopment Authority of the City of Milwaukee to be held on Thursday, August 20th, 2009 at 1:30 p.m. at the 1st Floor Boardroom, 809 N. Broadway. The public is welcome to comment.
According to the Resolution scheduled to be adopted:
"The property at 716 East Clybourn Street is in need of rehabilitation by reason of it [sic] age and deteriorating condition, which impairs the sound growth of the area."
How bad is the deterioration of the building? It's too late to tell. The Milwaukeeworld Hound Dog Team took a walk to the site, where nothing remains except concrete, rebar and inviting fire hydrants. The building is already gone. It was condemned, and a razing permit was issued on June 19th, 2009. All that's left is a 104,306 sq. ft. lot valued at $5,215,300. That's $50 a square foot, among the highest-assessed land in the state. (The adjacent U. S. Bank Building site is valued at $100 per square foot.)
By being declared "blighted," the property will become eligible for "financial assistance for redevelopment and borrowing purposes."
The blight designation "enables the Redevelopment Authority to assist private acquisition, improvement and development of blighted property for the purpose of eliminating its status as blighted property."
The blight designation will enable U. S. Bank National Assn., the property's owner, to finance its new garage without having to trouble its own loan officers, or dig into its pockets for capital.
That's because the Redevelopment Authority has adopted a preliminary resolution [Res.10083] authorizing up to $21.5 million in Tax-Exempt bonds to pay for the new 995-space parking garage planned for the site. The structure is expected to cost $20 million (up from $18 million in April). U.S. Bank will be responsible for paying off the bonds, and for finding buyers for them as well. It will also pay the authority a premium of three-quarters of one percent of the principal value of the bonds, or $150,000.
The presence of a connected parking structure is usually one of the attributes of a Class "A" office building, such as the U. S. Bank building. (This is especially true in cities like Milwaukee that lack rail transit options. In grown-up cities with transit, like Washington and New York, developers are often freed from the need to have their governments issue revenue bonds to finance parking decks. They don't need them.)
The old deck was built in 1973, and had "reached a point last fall when the building inspector had serious doubts about its condition," according to James Scherer of the Redevelopment Authority. Last winter, parking was prohibited on its upper level, and the structure was shored up from below. "It would not survive another winter," Scherer said.
To complicate matters, the old deck was built as a temporary structure, just biding its time until its land would support a companion tower to what was then the First Wisconsin building, still Wisconsin's mightiest skyscraper. The lofty pile, at 601 feet, is just 99 feet shorter than the 115th tallest building in the nation, at which point people who rank buildings by their height stop keeping count.
With the deck gone, legions of Foley and Lardner attorneys who had never parked under the open sky whether at home or work now must leave their vehicles exposed to the elements, while the rough concrete sidewalks of downtown scour the leather off the soles of their Allen-Edmonds shoes. Wait until winter, when the salt will eat away at their buffed uppers.
It's pitiful, and this spectacle will play out in full sight of the Salvation Army building.
The Foley & Lardner attorneys should be able to return to their cloistered parking by September, 2010, Scherer says. And the U. S. Bank Building will go from "Class, Eh?" to "Class 'A!'" once again.
According to the Resolution scheduled to be adopted:
"The property at 716 East Clybourn Street is in need of rehabilitation by reason of it [sic] age and deteriorating condition, which impairs the sound growth of the area."
How bad is the deterioration of the building? It's too late to tell. The Milwaukeeworld Hound Dog Team took a walk to the site, where nothing remains except concrete, rebar and inviting fire hydrants. The building is already gone. It was condemned, and a razing permit was issued on June 19th, 2009. All that's left is a 104,306 sq. ft. lot valued at $5,215,300. That's $50 a square foot, among the highest-assessed land in the state. (The adjacent U. S. Bank Building site is valued at $100 per square foot.)
By being declared "blighted," the property will become eligible for "financial assistance for redevelopment and borrowing purposes."
The blight designation "enables the Redevelopment Authority to assist private acquisition, improvement and development of blighted property for the purpose of eliminating its status as blighted property."
The blight designation will enable U. S. Bank National Assn., the property's owner, to finance its new garage without having to trouble its own loan officers, or dig into its pockets for capital.
That's because the Redevelopment Authority has adopted a preliminary resolution [Res.10083] authorizing up to $21.5 million in Tax-Exempt bonds to pay for the new 995-space parking garage planned for the site. The structure is expected to cost $20 million (up from $18 million in April). U.S. Bank will be responsible for paying off the bonds, and for finding buyers for them as well. It will also pay the authority a premium of three-quarters of one percent of the principal value of the bonds, or $150,000.
The presence of a connected parking structure is usually one of the attributes of a Class "A" office building, such as the U. S. Bank building. (This is especially true in cities like Milwaukee that lack rail transit options. In grown-up cities with transit, like Washington and New York, developers are often freed from the need to have their governments issue revenue bonds to finance parking decks. They don't need them.)
The old deck was built in 1973, and had "reached a point last fall when the building inspector had serious doubts about its condition," according to James Scherer of the Redevelopment Authority. Last winter, parking was prohibited on its upper level, and the structure was shored up from below. "It would not survive another winter," Scherer said.
To complicate matters, the old deck was built as a temporary structure, just biding its time until its land would support a companion tower to what was then the First Wisconsin building, still Wisconsin's mightiest skyscraper. The lofty pile, at 601 feet, is just 99 feet shorter than the 115th tallest building in the nation, at which point people who rank buildings by their height stop keeping count.
With the deck gone, legions of Foley and Lardner attorneys who had never parked under the open sky whether at home or work now must leave their vehicles exposed to the elements, while the rough concrete sidewalks of downtown scour the leather off the soles of their Allen-Edmonds shoes. Wait until winter, when the salt will eat away at their buffed uppers.
It's pitiful, and this spectacle will play out in full sight of the Salvation Army building.
The Foley & Lardner attorneys should be able to return to their cloistered parking by September, 2010, Scherer says. And the U. S. Bank Building will go from "Class, Eh?" to "Class 'A!'" once again.
posted by Michael Horne @ 10:09 AM
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