This information is from the Neighborhood Update section of the Uncle Hugo's and Uncle Edgar's newsletter. These great bookstores are located directly across from the Sears building. They are like the hardware stores, great neighborhood businesses that via with Barnes and Noble, Borders and other icky national chains. Sorry this is so long, especially in light of the settlement this week. But I think it is important to include the whole article as perfectly as my typing skills are. I replied to an earlier message, not knowing a settlement had been reached. Josh Kroll Powderhorn - Ward 9 Able to see the Sears building by looking to the right of my computer and out the window. Neighborhood Update by Don Blyly We frequently have people ask what is going on across the street with the fromer Sears building. It used to be that many of the meetings I attended were full of reliable news about the project, but things have changed. Ray Harris, the chief developer, came to almost every monthly meeting of the Chicago-Lake Business Association to keep the local business people up-to-date on what was happening, through October 2000, but he hasn't been to a meeting since then. As a result, much of what I'm about to pass along can almost qualify as gossip rather than news, coming from people who had talked to Ray or to MCDA (Mpls Community Development Agency, the negotiating arm of the city), from local community activists, and from various articles in various newspapers. The problem all along has been parking. There are not enough parking spaces available to develop the site as retail/office space because there wouldn't be anyplace for customers or employees to park. Ray Harris and MCDA reached agreement on a solution, but the city would not put the agreement into the form of a contract that Ray was willing to sign. Things started to turn nasty when the city tried to make a land grab for the Hi-Lake Shopping Center, next to where the Lake Street light rail station will be located. The owner of the 100% rented center didn't want to sell, the merchants didn't want to move, and the neighborhood didn't want the merchants to leave the area. The city delcared the center a "blighted" area, and announced that they would evict all the merchants sometime in the Fall of 2000. The city tried to get Ray Harris to let some of the major merchants from Hi-Lake to move into the former Sears building. Ray Harris pointed out that there would be no parking for customers or employees of these businesses, which was why the building was still empty, and the these business were not a good match for what he wanted to do with the building. Hi-Lake neighborhood activists and the businesses were also opposed to the plan. The city backed off from their plans to evict the businesses. But as one observer of the situation commented while here in the store, "Ray Harris had proved that he would no be a 'good ole boy', so the city decided to get rid of him." The mayor and the head of MCDA started attacking him for not delivering the jobs he had promised from the development, when it was clear that it was the MCDA's unwillingness to put in writing the agreement regarding parking that had stalled the project. Last September, the Chicago-Lake Business Association got a couple of people from MCDA to come to our meeting to brief us on what was going on. With Ray Harris sitting across the table from him, the head of MCDA gave a substantially different version of things than he had been giving in meetings wher Ray was not present. Ray gave substantially the same story he had been giving us all along. As of that meeting, Ray and the MCDA were still negotiating. About a month later, Ray commented that the situation was much more complex than had been presented at the September meeting, but gave no further details. >From community activists, I heard that Ray was trying to either bring in another partner with deep pockets or else sell the two buildings that are completely rented, in order to raise enough money to pay off MCDA's mortgage on the land and get the city completely out of the picture. When MCDA found out about this, they started to threaten early foreclosure on the mortgage, claiming that somehow it was a violation of the mortgage to try to pay the city off early. I've also heard from community activists that part of the problem was that when things started to turn strange between Ray and the city, most people in City Hall expected Al Gore to be elected president, and that he would offer the mayor a job in his adminstration. The prospect of the mayor's job opening up supposedly led some people in city hall to start maneuvering with an eye towars the mayoral election inways that hurt Ray's chances of getting an acceptable signed contract from MCDA. I don't know if this is true, but it would explain some the stupidity on the part of the city. Around the end of December, both MCDA and Ray Harris reported that they were still meeting frequently and were in intense negotiations. Ray also reportedly advised, "Don't believe everything you read in the paper." In early February, they city filed in court for early foreclosure on the mortgage. Ray has said repeatedly that he does not plan to just walk away from the development, but will vigorously defend his rights to the property in court, and that lots of stuff will come out in court that the public is not currently aware of. These are actually two mortgages, one from MCDA and one from a bank, and both come due at the end of March. Everybody has been acting as if the end of March is the real deadline for either an agreement between MCDA and Ray Harris or a refinancing package. But it is hard to be optimistic, given what has happend over the last nine months. _______________________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - Minnesota E-Democracy Post messages to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest option, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
