Library Lot Consultant: Valiant is Victor
Meeting for the first time in several months, the committee charged with reviewing proposals for the future of Ann Arbor’s downtown Library Lot convened on Nov. 23 and received a consultant’s report on the city-owned parcel. The Roxbury Group – a consultant hired to assist with assessing proposals from two finalists, Valiant and Acquest – has identified the proposal from Valiant as the stronger of the two. Both finalist proposals, selected by the committee earlier this year from six proposals, were for hotel/conference centers of some kind. The Library Lot is located north of the downtown library, between Division Street and Fifth Avenue, atop the underground parking garage currently under construction. [See Chronicle coverage: "Hotel/Conference Ideas Go Forward"]
The RFQ (request for qualifications) issued by the city of Ann Arbor, which led to the engagement of The Roxbury Group’s services, stated that the consultant should be able to “determine if the projects submitted to the City are economically viable and make financial sense in the Ann Arbor marketplace.” However, Roxbury’s report indicates that it “does not include and is not intended to serve as a feasibility study for the concepts included in the two proposals … it is generally assumed that the overall concepts included in the uses for the Library Lot contained in each proposal are valid and supportable from a market and demand standpoint.”