I have been working with HOBT on their effort to expand into the former Antiques Minnesota Building at 1508 East Lake Street for the past few months. It is a very complicated project with a lot of moving parts and an extremely tight timeline, particularly when public financing is involved. Despite these challenges, HOBT's developer, staff, board, and bank, have been working tirelessly with numerous city staff from the MCDA and EZ to try and get this project done.
As the Mayor indicated in his e-mail, the project has been up and down several times in past few weeks and is still in a very fluid state. About 10 days ago, it became clear that there was no way to meet the targeted closing date of December 23rd for either the private bank or public financing. This realization has put the project into a very delicate and precarious state right now. Know that all of us, HOBT, their developer, their bank, MCDA, EZ, Council Members and the Mayor, are doing our best to make this happen, we simply aren't there yet. Stay tuned to Minneapolis Issues and we will let you know as things progress. Thanks for your interest. Erik Takeshita, Senior Policy Aide to Mayor R.T. Rybak -----Original Message----- From: Rybak, R.T. Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2002 5:09 PM To: 'Diane Wiley'; Minneapolis Forum Cc: Takeshita, Erik M Subject: RE: [Mpls] Heart of the Beast Lost? The Heart of the Beast project has been up and down many times in the last weeks....and I will ask Erik Takeshita from my office to give a more complete update when the office opens tomorrow...But I do want to say Erik and others in my office have been working very very hard on this project for weeks now because we think this is so important. The numbers on this make it a very difficult deal that has had an exceptional amount of assistance from my office. If there is any way to keep it alive we will do it because it would be a great addition. R.T. Rybak -----Original Message----- From: Diane Wiley [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2002 9:32 AM To: Minneapolis Forum Subject: [Mpls] Heart of the Beast Lost? I just heard that the deal fell through for the old Antiques Minnesota building that Heart of the Beast was set to buy. Does anyone know if this is true, and why did it happen? I heard that the city messed it up because the bank that was going to do the financing felt that the city didn't have their ducks lined up. It seems so unfair -- we are trying to keep a neighborhood together here. Diane Wiley Powderhorn Park _______________________________________ Minneapolis Issues Forum - A City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn E-Democracy Post messages to: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe, Unsubscribe, Digest, and more: http://e-democracy.org/mpls
