Who ever said, Halloween should be scary? It always includes, a serving of dairy.

One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over ... BOO!

A Halloween costume? But where is your mask? Powers revealed to those who dare ask.

This creature is ghoulish, all wrinkly and green, escaped its lagoon for the Halloween scene.

Amelia Earhart, where did they find her? Handing out candy, nobody's kinder.

She couldn't be cuter in her lovely blue dress, with a handbag of candy to add more finesse.

The bowtie's a tip off, the gadget's a clue, but on Halloween, just say Doctor Boo!

Though enemies through the rest of the year, the pig and the mouse put aside their centuries-old feud once a year to celebrate the holiday of piece (of candy), which is Halloween.

MJ is dancing, he's thrilling his fans, but the little Go Boo girl wants to march in a band!

Says a stylish young witch in purple and black: "Please put some candy right into this sack!"

A count in a cape, and a devil with horns, a pumpkin that holds a few candy corns.

This big bad wolf is a sweet little lamb, searching for candy wherever he can.

This swashbuckling pirate is eating his knife! He's ready to fight off the urban wildlife.

Did you ever think, you'd see a pirate in pink?

Peacocks are pretty – you know that it's true, especially when hugging and smiling in blue.

Up on her tippy toes, not all that scary – Ann Arbor Halloween's miss pumpkin fairy.

Judged as a witch, this teacher looks dandy, but people keep asking, "What's Spanish for 'candy'?"

We suspect Grandpa Smurf is well weary of the old joke, "You look like you're feeling a little blue," as well as the Halloween variant, "You look like you're feeling a little boo."

A tiger, a kitty and even a cow, what other munchkins are we looking at now?

Three girls are hugging and happy on Main Street, asking the merchants to share something sweet!

Not enough cuteness? Myra will be posting more photos from her Halloween shoot on her Facebook page.

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Doug Kelbaugh and Kit McCullough at the June 8 partnerships meeting of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

The parcels are currently used for parking – except for the Library Lot. It’s the construction site for an underground garage that, when completed, will offer around 640 parking spaces. The structure is engineered to bear the weight of a building on top of it that’s as tall as 180 feet.

The main event of the June partnerships meeting was a formal proposal to lead a public engagement process that would take place starting this fall. The proposal came from Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s college of architecture and urban planning, and Kit McCullough, who teaches at the college.

The two had attended the May partnerships meeting and given a more conversational, informal version of the proposal. As laid out by Kelbaugh and McCullough this month, the process would include three phases: (1) a data gathering phase; (2) a public meeting phase – one in October to solicit input, and one in November to present two or three concepts for the public’s response; and (3) a presentational phase – in January 2012, they’d consolidate feedback into a final concept plan, which would describe massing, ground floor uses, public/civic uses and pre-schematic site design.

Before Kelbaugh and McCullough presented their proposal, the conversation among committee members and other attendees ranged across several topics – the nature of suburban versus urban, the conceptual compared to the real, and the contrast between consensus and unanimity. The attendees, both at the table and in the audience, were a formidable group. They included local developer Peter Allen, who with his brother Lane presented a more elaborate version of the “four corners” concept that Allen had briefly sketched for the DDA board at their June 1 meeting. Those corners are the Allen Creek greenway (Ann Arbor downtown); the riverfront of the Huron River; the proposed Fuller Road Station near the University of Michigan’s medical complex; and the university’s central campus.

Also in attendance was Albert Berriz, CEO of McKinley Inc., a real estate development and property management firm. When asked for his advice, Berriz emphasized dealing with real people who had real capital and real ideas. He pointed to the McKinley Towne Centre renovation at Liberty and Division streets as an example of the kind of capital and commitment that’s required. Now eight years into that project, Berriz said, it’s really only just beginning. He anticipated it would take 20 years altogether to bring the project to full fruition.

Jesse Bernstein – chair of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board, and former head of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce (now the Ypsilanti-Ann Arbor Regional Chamber) – drew on the AATA’s experience over the last year or more in transit master planning. That had included a significant investment in educating the public as well as the AATA board, he said, simply in terms of what transit options are available. He also stressed that for him, “consensus is a special word.” It’s not about unanimity, he said, but rather about what you can live with.

DDA board member Russ Collins, executive director of the Michigan Theater, revisited a theme he’s highlighted before at DDA board meetings over at least the last year: Suburban versus urban development. The U.S. has seen 70 years of investment in suburban development, he said, and part of the idea of a downtown development authority is to direct at least a trickle of reinvestment in the existing infrastructure of urban centers.

Collins summed up his view of a path forward, based on the morning’s discussion, by saying, “We need to facilitate, educate and get real.” Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, suggested that the next partnerships meeting in July should be treated more like a retreat. The committee could settle in and figure out exactly how the DDA would meet the city council’s directive to facilitate a public engagement process to find alternate uses for downtown city-owned property.

Peter Allen:  Cheerleading

Peter Allen had attended the partnerships committee meeting in May, and had at that time begun to articulate the role he’d like to play in the process. Asked by DDA board member Bob Guenzel at that meeting what the nature of his involvement was, Allen explained that he’s spending his own money as he’s talking with property owners in and around the 500 foot x 500 foot block bounded by Liberty, Division, William and Fifth.

Peter Allen's "Schematic of Relationships." (Image links to higher resolution .pdf file)

At June’s partnerships committee meeting, Allen identified various categories of risk associated with development, rules for developing walkable neighborhoods, and emerging trends he saw. Throughout his remarks, some recurrent themes emerged.

Chief among them was the significance of the role the Ann Arbor District Library’s downtown location, at the northeast corner of Fifth and William. [Ken Nieman, AADL associate director, also attended the meeting, sitting in the audience.]

Allen returned often to the point that the library is a major anchor on the block. In Allen’s schematic of relationships among local entities, laid out geographically and functionally, the library enjoys a big blue circle in the middle of the graphic. The library, Allen said, needs to be nurtured more than any other idea. Allen felt that AADL director Josie Parker understood that the library of the future is not primarily a place just for storing books. What happens with the library’s future building plans will set the tone for what happens on the block, he said.

By way of background, the AADL board has weighed a plan to construct a new building on the same site as its current downtown location, but paused those plans in late 2008, when the economy took a sharp downturn. The library board had an in-depth public discussion about revisiting those plans most recently in February 2010. And the possibility of building a new facility surfaced indirectly as the library board made investments in a new chiller for the existing building in September 2010. At the board’s January 2011 meeting, outgoing board president Rebecca Head described the current building as “crumbling,” and said she expected the board to take up the issue again in the coming months. [Chronicle coverage: "Citing Economy, Board Halts Library Project," "Board Renews Library Building Discussion" and "Library Board: Invest in Current Building?"]

At the June 8 DDA partnerships meeting, Allen speculated that the library could partner with The Ark – a nonprofit  folk music venue on Main Street. [DDA board member Bob Guenzel also serves on The Ark's board.] And Allen reported that Herb David, whose guitar studio is located in an historic house on the corner of Fifth and Liberty, is interested in staying right where he is, but would like access to more performance space nearby.

Another recurrent theme in Allen’s remarks was the importance of rationing newly constructed space to the needs of the marketplace. Newly constructed space needed to be pre-leased and pre-sold, so that it does not wind up sitting empty like roadkill from the last economic cycle, he said. At the moment, pre-leasing and pre-selling is a challenge for new office space, he said, because rents currently are around $20 a square foot, but would need to be around $30 to support new construction.

Also recurring throughout Allen’s remarks was the importance of transportation connections. He identified four different transit connections that are crucial: (1)  the Ann Arbor-to-Chicago rail connection; (2) the Ann Arbor-to-Detroit rail connection; (3) the planned Plymouth-State street high capacity corridor connector; and (4) countywide transit currently being planned by the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

For the Chicago connection, Allen said he thought that reliable service in under four hours should soon be a reality – we can plan on that, he said. For the Ann Arbor-Detroit commuter connection, not all funding is in place, but he felt like the political support is there. For the Plymouth-State street connector, he said, the question is what happens when it gets to downtown. Would it go down Liberty Street? Would it go down William Street?

Jesse Bernstein: Education, Consensus

For his part, Jesse Bernstein said that the lesson the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority had learned in its transit master planning process – which it has conducted over the last year or more – was the importance of education.

Almost two years ago, the AATA decided they needed to engage in a process. And they’d looked at the Ann Arbor community, and at the norms and ways it’s historically gone about planning. The AATA had concluded it’s critical to involve people personally in groups or over the Internet. Bernstein noted the AATA had held more than 60 meetings that were open to citizens over the last year and a half.

The AATA had looked at a 30-year vision. It’s a chicken-egg situation, he said. Folks won’t move to a place the minute the buses start running. It will take a while to figure out where the routes will be. There are also short-term details to be worked out. In redesigning the new Blake Transit Center, for example, there was a recognition that to maintain tight time schedules, easy access to bathrooms for drivers would be a requirement – the building design was modified to accommodate that.

On a short-term basis, the AATA will continue to provide the same services it provides now, Bernstein said. When the new Blake Transit Center is constructed, the BTC will still have a lot of buses coming together in one spot, so they’d also started looking at the first floor of the Fourth and William parking structure as a potential site for transportation use.

But that has to be discussed in terms of all the sites the DDA will be looking at – it’s not helpful to do one site at a time, Bernstein cautioned. When he was president of the Ann Arbor Area Chamber of Commerce, he said, national developers knocked on his door, but when they looked at the way Ann Arbor does its planning and processes, he said they shook his hand and walked away.

In terms of shorter-term expansions of the services AATA might be able to provide, Bernstein said the AATA is looking to beef up the corridor between Ypsilanti and Ann Arbor. Another short-term possibility is to add express buses and speed up the Ypsi-Ann Arbor trip.

Bernstein said he would love to restart the LINK – a downtown circulator bus service. He said his understanding was that the number of stops was determined based on the number of letters in the alphabet and that created a structural problem (too many stops to maintain on-time efficiency). When it’s restarted, he quipped, perhaps the number of stops could be based on the number of letters in Susan Pollay’s first name. Pollay joked back that it would mean only four stops, because one of the letters repeats.

Bernstein also reported that AATA is working intently on getting airport shuttle service up and running. The current strategy is to work with Michigan Flyer, which is already running buses from the Sheraton hotel in Ann Arbor to the Detroit Metro airport. So Bernstein said the AATA hoped to be able to use the top of the Fourth and William parking deck for parking spaces for Michigan Flyer airport shuttle patrons. AATA is talking to the University of Michigan – for UM affiliates who need to travel, such an airport shuttle service could be a boon, he said.

In the course of the conversation at the table, a point to which Bernstein returned was the importance of education and understanding the real meaning of consensus. In engaging the public about transportation planning, he said, the AATA needed to make sure the public understood what’s possible. By way of example, he said that before joining the AATA board, he had no idea what bus rapid transit (BRT) was. That’s when you use “big monster buses that bend in the middle” that can carry 180 people at one time, which travel on a dedicated lane or in regular traffic, he explained. The same kind of educational component needs to be included in planning for the downtown, he said.

The last point Bernstein made was a process point. He talked about how, to him, “consensus” is a very special word. It doesn’t mean that everyone agrees with the outcome – it means that they’ve agreed they can live with the outcome. In Ann Arbor, he said, people are very sensitive to the minority. But it should not be the case that they keep asking: “Is anybody objecting to this?” If they don’t ask people if they can live with it, they’re doomed to failure, he concluded.

Albert Berriz: Realist

Asked for his thoughts at the partnerships committee table, Albert Berriz noted that McKinley Inc. had around 170 active projects. With respect to the planning work, he suggested if the DDA had well-capitalized, legitimate developers, “they’ll do this for you.” They needed to be grounded in pragmatism, he advised. As an example of a development that was not grounded that way, he offered the proposed Broadway Village at Lower Town development. [Proposed by East Lansing-based Strathmore Development, the project stalled after the old Kroger store was demolished, and now sits as an empty field bounded by Broadway, Maiden Lane and Nielson Court.]

A parking lot for Lower Town should not be the outcome, Berriz said. The people who attempted the development at the site “weren’t real,” he said. The project was misrepresented, and undercapitalized. At the corner of Liberty and Division street, he said, McKinley had created the Towne Centre by getting “real people with real capital.” He said that project would take a total of 20 years to bring to fruition. Already eight years into it, he said, it’s still really at the beginning. If someone doesn’t have the capital to hang with you for 10 years, they shouldn’t be in the room, he concluded.

The area the DDA has been asked to look at, he said, is a “superb opportunity.” He cautioned the DDA: “Don’t go too long in a fantasy world.”

Collins: Suburban-Urban

Russ Collins said he and the rest of the DDA board had done a lot of reflection in the last few months. He suggested that Ann Arbor has a larger community issue to think about: Understanding what an urban center is.

He felt that the nature of an urban center is not well understood  by citizens – or even by the DDA board or the Ann Arbor city council. The reason for that lack of understanding, he said, is that for the last 70 years, governmental policy has been to build suburban infrastructure. Building highways and making it easy to develop greenfields discouraged reinvestment in urban centers, he said. That resulted in “donut holes” [areas with abandoned urban centers]. That’s been not just government policy, but also the expectation of citizens. The strategy has not been to re-use the investment that was already put into urban centers, he said. That approach is deeply seated in the way we live and move: “Suburbanization is the way you develop if you develop in America.”

Downtown development authorities were formed in the 1980s to help deal with this lack of reinvestment in urban centers, Collins said, but instead of directing a stream of funding to the urban centers, it’s been a trickle, which is better than nothing at all.

Kelbaugh and McCullough: Facilitators

Doug Kelbaugh, former dean of the University of Michigan’s college of architecture and urban planning, and Kit McCullough, who teaches at the college, attended the partnerships committee meeting to deliver a formal proposal they’d been asked to present after the conversation they’d had at the previous month’s partnerships committee meeting.

Their formal proposal to the DDA to lead a public engagement process includes three phases:

1. July-September 2011: Preliminary analysis, data gathering. This would prepare Kelbaugh and McCullough for the first public meeting.
2. October-November 2011: Public meetings. The public meeting in October might be conducted in two separate but identical sessions to allow for a broader range of people to attend. They’d start with a presentation on the opportunities, constraints and possibilities, using examples from other communities. The conversation would be both broad, touching on the community’s aspirations for the downtown and a longer-term visions, as well as getting input that’s specific to the parcels. Kelbaugh and McCullough are proposing to focus on the Library Lot (the top of the South Fifth Avenue underground parking structure), the old YMCA Lot (at William and Fifth), and the Palio Lot (at William and Main). They’d leave the Kline’s Lot (along Ashley, north of William) aside for now. For the November meeting, Kelbaugh and McCullough would return with two or three concepts to get response from the public.
3. January 2012: Final concept plan. Feedback from the public will be consolidated into a final concept plan that describes massing, ground floor uses, public/civic uses, public space and pre-schematic site design. This concept plan could be used to craft future requests for proposals (RFPs) for the sites. The plan would then be presented to the DDA and the city council.

Kelbaugh cautioned that he and McCullough would not be providing their services in their capacity as University of Michigan employees, but rather as independent professionals. The proposed fee for their scope of work is $30,000.

Drawing on the basic elements of advice from different people they’d heard that morning, Russ Collins declared: “We need to facilitate, we need to educate and we need to get real!”

As the meeting wound down, Susan Pollay, the DDA’s executive director, encouraged the partnerships committee members to think of their next meeting in July as more like a retreat. She said she might discuss the idea of extending the meeting into the transportation committee’s regular slot, which immediately follows the partnerships committee meeting.

Kelbaugh cautioned that if he and McCullough were going to do the work they were proposing, they needed to begin in July, or August at the latest. Waiting until the spring term was not an option, because McCullough would have teaching responsibilities then – she’s got the fall term free. [The full DDA board meets once a month. The soonest the board could approve the Kelbaugh-McCullough proposal would be at its July 6 meeting. Committee meetings take place after the full board meeting, which falls on the first Wednesday of every month.]

Responding to Kelbaugh’s concern about the timeline, Collins noted that he’d previously said they needed to “get real.”

Collins concluded: ”Timelines are real.”

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The need for a construction manager was identified by representatives of the Federal Transit Administration after reviewing AATA projects that are being funded with federal dollars.

This brief was filed from the boardroom of the Ann Arbor district library, where the AATA holds its meetings. A more detailed report of the meeting will follow.

That 90-day window ended last Monday, May 9, without a resubmission by de Parry, according to city of Ann Arbor planning staff. The project could still be submitted to the city for review, but would not enjoy the fee reduction offered by the city council in February. A public engagement meeting, which is required by city ordinance for new projects, was held on March 25, 2011 for the Heritage Row project.

At the March 25 meeting, held at the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library, the presentation included the most recent revisions that had been reviewed by city staff. The last proposal reviewed by the city includes the following revisions: (1) the top floor of the new south building would be removed from the design; (2) the density would be reduced from 79 units to 76 units and the number of bedrooms would be reduced from 154 to 147; (3) the project would include five affordable units at the 50% AMI (average median income) level, in addition to six affordable units at the 80% AMI level; and (4) the three new buildings would be LEED certified.

The residential project, located on the east side of South Fifth Avenue, would renovate seven houses and construct three new apartment buildings behind those houses, with an underground parking garage. The council initially rejected Heritage Row on June 21, 2010, with a 7-4 vote in favor. It required an 8-vote majority for approval, due to a petition filed by adjoining property owners. The city council then reconsidered the project at its July 6, 2010 meeting, and it failed again, on a 7-3 vote. Then at the council’s Dec. 6, 2010 meeting, some councilmembers seemed poised to suspend council rules to allow another reconsideration, but the vote to suspend council rules failed.

Instead of resubmitting Heritage Row, another possibility for de Parry is to begin construction on a different project at the same location, which the city council approved as a “matter of right” project on Sept. 21, 2009. That project, called City Place, would include two buildings separated by a surface parking lot with 24 total units, each with six bedrooms.

Dante Chinni, co-athor of "Our Patchwork Nation." That's a Tigers cap he's wearing, and it's not accidental.

“I don’t want to be another city. I resent the fact that we are compared to other cities when projects are being proposed.”

That was Ali Ramlawi, owner of the Jerusalem Garden on South Fifth Avenue in downtown Ann Arbor, addressing the April 4, 2011 meeting of the Ann Arbor city council. He was criticizing the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority, and advocating against a proposed conference center and hotel project on the Library Lot – the council voted the project down later that evening.

“Ann Arbor will change … but it won’t become Detroit.”

That was Dante Chinni, while riding the the teeter totter on my front porch last Thursday afternoon. Chinni has made it part of his job to compare communities like Ann Arbor – Washtenaw County, actually – to other places in the country.

Who is Dante Chinni? And why should Ann Arbor care what he thinks?

On his website, Chinni describes himself as a “a card-carrying member of the East Coast Media Industrial Complex.” The part of his job that lets him compare one place to another – in a statistically sophisticated way – is a project Chinni conceived called Patchwork Nation. It’s funded by the Knight Foundation. The effort has already produced a book, which he co-authored with James Gimpel: “Our Patchwork Nation: The Surprising Truth about the ‘Real’ America.”

Washtenaw County is featured in the chapter that introduces readers to the concept of a “Campus and Careers” community type. The classification, as well as a read through Dante’s Talk, confirm that mostly what defines Ann Arbor – at least for people on the outside looking in – is its place as the home of the University of Michigan. And certainly for people on the inside, it’s difficult to argue that UM isn’t currently the single most important institution in the community.

But some insiders – and by this I mean not just people who live, work and play here, but actual Ann Arbor insiders – are starting to float the question of what else Ann Arbor might aspire to be besides home to “the most profound educational institution in the Midwest.”

Vision of Ann Arbor: Non-Physical (DDA Partnerships)

“The most profound educational institution in the Midwest” was David Di Rita’s description of UM, which came in the context of a meeting of the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority’s partnerships committee on Wednesday morning, April 13. Di Rita, a principal with the Roxbury Group, served as a consultant on the RFP review process for the Library Lot, which the city council terminated two weeks ago.

The partnerships committee meeting was one of insiders – both at the committee table and in the audience.

At the table besides Di Rita were: DDA board members John Mouat, Russ Collins, Gary Boren, Sandi Smith, Bob Guenzel and John Splitt, along with Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, and city councilmember Tony Derezinski. Invited to the table mid-meeting were Josie Parker, executive director of the Ann Arbor District Library – who brought along AADL board member Nancy Kaplan – and Jesse Bernstein, chair of the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority board.

In the audience sat other easily recognizable names: Vivienne Armentrout (former Washtenaw County commissioner), Peter Allen (developer), Mary Hathaway (prominent activist for peace and social justice), Alice Ralph (former candidate for county board, city council, and author of a community commons proposal for the Library Lot), Tom Wieder (local attorney and long-time city Democratic Party activist), John Floyd (former candidate for city council), and Sabra Briere (city councilmember).

Part of the committee’s agenda was a discussion of how to approach beginning a process that the city council has agreed to let the DDA lead. The process could result in the development of different uses for four city-owned downtown parcels currently used for surface parking: the Kline Lot on South Ashley, the Palio Lot at Main and William, the old Y Lot at Fifth and William; and the Library Lot on South Fifth. The Library Lot is actually currently a construction site – the DDA is building a roughly 640-space underground parking garage on the site. [Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Council Focuses on Downtown"]

Bernstein weighed in for a process that would begin with figuring out a vision: Where do we aspire to be in 30 years? He pointed to the AATA’s process of developing a transit master plan – still in the works – as an example of that kind of approach. [Chronicle coverage: "'Smart Growth' to Fuel Countywide Transit" ]

Parker shared some of the hurdles that are inherent in the library’s future plans for its downtown building – plans that are currently on hold. Those challenges involve the historical relationship between the library and the Ann Arbor Public Schools (the district has a right of first refusal on any offer to sell the building) and the need to ask voters to increase the library millage in order to fund a new building. [Chronicle coverage: "Citing Economy, Board Halts Library Project"]

Remarks from Mouat, a DDA board member, seemed to resonate with Allen, a developer seated in the audience. [Allen has long called for the master planning of the whole area around the Library Lot, not just the Library Lot itself. Chronicle coverage: "Column: Visions for the Library Lot"]

Mouat suggested that the process could include developing a vision for Ann Arbor that is not physical. To explain what he meant, Mouat noted that Austin is known as a “music capital” and Boulder is known as a “recreation capital.” Ann Arbor, he said, is known as the home of the University of Michigan – but what is Ann Arbor beyond the university? he asked. He said that for his part, he could imagine Ann Arbor becoming some kind of “food capital.”

Vision of Ann Arbor: Third Base, Caboose, Engine

Compared to Mouat’s vision of an Ann Arbor that is distinctive, but not based on the presence of the university, Di Rita’s take on Ann Arbor seemed closer to building that vision based on the university connection. In assessing the Library Lot location, he noted that its three major advantages are: (1) the nearby location of other institutions – the library and the transit center; (2) the nearby location of the restaurant and entertainment district; (3) the short walk to the university.

Di Rita sees Ann Arbor as being born to hit a triple – now it’s standing on third base. The question is: Does it want to run home? Ann Arbor could really take things to the next level, he said, but the question is whether there’s a community desire to do that. He said that based on the major stakeholders in the community he’d spoken with, there’s support among them to head towards home plate.

Di Rita noted that one of the things that makes Ann Arbor distinct is that even a person who lives out on Scio Church Road might have strong objections to a proposal for downtown Ann Arbor. In other cities, he said, it’s sometimes the case that only the immediately adjacent neighbors have objections. But that’s not the way Ann Arbor works, he said, and you have to “play the ball where it lies.”

Di Rita sees growth for Ann Arbor, even if it just stands on third base as far as its vision for itself – buildings are going to get built, he said.

Dante Chinni didn’t attend the partnerships committee meeting – by then he had returned to Washington, D.C. But I can imagine him agreeing with at least some of what Di Rita had to say. To Chinni, the most salient and distinctive part of Ann Arbor is the university. And he sees Ann Arbor’s growth as fueled by growth at the university. The Patchwork Nation analysis slots Washtenaw County into the “Campus and Career” community type. But Ann Arbor is surely much more than just the university, right? What does Chinni know – he’s not from here.

But Chinni actually is from here – or more accurately, from around these parts: He grew up in Warren. So he’s at least not as susceptible as other east-coast media types to thinking of Michigan as one place, typified by Detroit. From his Talk:

I mean, most people who don’t live here view Michigan as Detroit. They don’t even really think of the northern part of Michigan. And when you tell them that, Oh, no the county right next door to it, the unemployment rate is really only about, what 6 or 7 percent …

When Chinni was in town two years ago, Ann Arbor was being described by our local officials as a life preserver for the rest of the state. A couple of weeks ago, at a different meeting of Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority board members, mayor John Hieftje described the state of Michigan as a train, headed over a cliff. But Ann Arbor was the caboose, Hieftje said, so we’d be the last to go over the cliff.

On the totter, Chinni and I agreed that maybe that train metaphor needs tweaking a bit – instead of a caboose, maybe Ann Arbor should be compared to an engine hooked to the other end pulling Michigan’s train away from the cliff. Specifically in the recovery of Detroit, Chinni sees a role for Ann Arbor:

This is what I think is going to happen: It’s not going to be that Ann Arbor’s just going to grow and grow and get really big and Detroit is to get smaller and smaller and smaller and all the people to move out here. Ann Arbor is going to become a bigger and bigger economic force and eventually that will rub off on Detroit.

And as Ann Arbor becomes a bigger and bigger economic force, Chinni thinks Ann Arbor will change:

Ann Arbor will change as part of that, but it won’t become Detroit. If Ann Arbor is successful at helping Detroit become what it can become, Ann Arbor will change, too. People who don’t think it’s been a change, Ann Arbor has changed since 1980. It has. I know people here don’t want to hear that, but it has changed. It is not the same city as it was back then. I mean politically, the student body has changed – it’s a different place.

So as Ann Arbor changes, I think it’s worth asking if the residents of Ann Arbor will be able to reach a consensus on a vision of this place that might help guide that change. And it looks like an attempt to find that consensus will be part of the DDA-led process to look at those four downtown parcels.

I hope that people who participate in the process along the way are prepared to accept that the community consensus vision might be different from their personal vision.

Patchwork Politics

It’s worth noting that Patchwork Nation is not a project borne out of desire to help Ann Arbor figure out its vision. It was born out of a desire to understand politics in the U.S. on a more detailed level than the red-state/blue-state maps the media tends to use around election time.

That goal led Chinni to take a county-by-county approach, which resulted in an analysis of each U.S. county as one of 12 types: Boom Towns, Campus and Careers, Emptying Nests, Evangelical Epicenters, Immigration Nation, Industrial Metropolis, Military Bastions, Minority Central, Monied Burbs, Mormon Outposts, Service Worker Centers, Tractor Country. [For interactive maps of the Patchwork analysis, visit the Patchwork Nation website.]

I’ve written about the book before, when then-candidate for mayor Steve Bean graced the other end of the teeter totter last fall.

As Chinni pointed out during his ride, everything that’s said about the community types is more true of the type than it is about individual places categorized by a type.

Still, I think it’s natural for anyone who picks up the book to find their own community and decide if Chinni and Gimpel got it right. What will also be interesting to see is if the Patchwork approach begins to serve as a reliable tool for getting more insight into national-level politics.

On the totter, Chinni described how he’ll be partnering with the PBS Newshour on upcoming 2012 election coverage, offering insight on those races from the Patchwork point of view. It’s possible we’ll start to see the Patchwork analysis seep into the approach taken by the media to its election coverage and analysis for the 2012 cycle.

For Chinni’s views in more detail and context, read Dante Chinni’s Talk.

Councilmember Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) ticks through the list of parcels that would be the focus of a DDA-led development process. (Photos by the writer.)

Councilmembers voted on two major downtown-related agenda items – one affecting the immediate future of an individual parcel, the city-owned Library Lot. The other item involves a process by which the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority would lead the planning of development for multiple downtown parcels, including the Library Lot.

The council voted, over dissent from two of its members, to end the RFP process for the Library Lot and to reject a draft letter of intent they’d discussed at a March 14 work session, which would have called for the city to work with Valiant Partners to craft a development agreement for construction of a conference center and hotel on the lot. The Ann Arbor DDA is currently building a roughly 640-space underground parking garage on that parcel.

Based on a separate resolution passed by the council, the future use of the Library Lot could emerge from a process to be led by the DDA. The council required lengthy deliberations before narrowly approving an amendment that reduced the area of focus for the DDA-led process. The amendment limited the area to the square bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets, which would include the Library Lot on South Fifth Avenue, the Kline Lot on Ashley, the old YMCA Lot at Fifth and William, and the Palio Lot at Main and William.

The resolution on the DDA-led process is part of a broader ongoing negotiation between the city and the DDA, related to the contract under which the DDA operates the city’s public parking system. That contract is being renegotiated, and since January, the city has not budged from its position that the DDA should pay the city a percentage-of-gross parking revenue of 16% in the contract’s first two years and 17.5% in years thereafter. It appears that the DDA board is gradually conceding to the city’s bargaining position. That will become clearer at the DDA board meeting on Wednesday, April 6.

The city’s negotiating position is based in part on the idea that the DDA is, as mayor John Hieftje has described it, “an arm of the city.” Hieftje’s view of the DDA as part of the city was further accentuated on Monday, when he announced at the end of the council’s meeting that he would be inviting the DDA to move its offices into newly-renovated space in the city hall building. The DDA currently leases space about a block south of city hall.

Also a part of Monday’s downtown-themed meeting was initial approval the council gave to a revision to the city’s ordinance on panhandling. That ordinance revision – which added some areas where panhandling is prohibited – will require a second reading and a public hearing in front of the council before it can be enacted.

An additional part of the downtown discussion came at the start of the council’s meeting, with a presentation on work being done to plan and study the 415 W. Washington parcel for future use as a center for artists and as a greenway park.

In non-downtown business, the council accepted a series of easements that will set the stage for TIGER II grant funds – already awarded by the federal government – to be formally obligated to the city. At stake is $13.1 million, which is currently still part of a continuing resolution for the federal budget. But that continuing resolution expires April 8, so the council was acting with some urgency.

The council also gave necessary approvals for a bus pullout to be constructed on Washtenaw Avenue, and authorized emergency purchase orders for furniture. And the council heard a presentation from Andrew Brix, the city’s energy programs manager, about efforts to increase the percentage of renewable energy that the city uses.

Library Lot RFP Termination

At its Monday meeting, the council considered a resolution to formally end the review process for proposals that had been received in response to a request for proposals (RFP) that the city issued in 2009 for use of the city-owned Library Lot.

A letter of intent (LOI) had been presented in draft form at a March 14, 2011 council work session, which would have called for the city to work with Valiant Partners over a four-month period to draft a development agreement for construction of a conference center and hotel at the South Fifth Avenue Library Lot site. The Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority is currently constructing a roughly 640-space underground parking garage on the parcel.

The RFP review committee, which was charged with evaluating the proposals, had selected the Valiant Partners conference center and hotel proposal as the preferred one out of six responses to the city’s RFP. The name “Valiant” is an allusion to the University of Michigan fight song, which includes the line, “Hail to the victors, valiant.” The partners include prominent UM alums Fritz Seyferth and Bruce Zenkel. [Previous Chronicle coverage "Library Lot from Top to Bottom"]

Added on Friday, April 1 to the Ann Arbor city council’s April 4 agenda, the resolution to end the Library Lot RFP process was sponsored by mayor John Hieftje and councilmembers Christopher Taylor (Ward 3), Sabra Briere (Ward 1), Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2) and Sandi Smith (Ward 1). At Monday’s meeting, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) asked that his name be added as a co-sponsor of the resolution.

Library Lot RFP Termination: Public Commentary

Alan Haber opened by saying, “It’s nice to be here again.” He said that he was again there to address the council on the topic of the community commons – a proposal he’d supported as a use for the Library Lot. He also told them that he was again disgruntled.

Haber objected to the fact that the council was contemplating termination of the RFP process, when the process had generated a proposal for a community commons that he said never received a fair hearing.

Sign held by an audience member in support of rejecting the Library Lot conference center proposal.

[Haber had worked with a group that submitted the proposal for a commons as one of six responses the city received to its RFP for use of the lot. The commons proposal was presented publicly, along with the other five proposals, and eliminated early on by the RFP review committee. It was then reinstated for consideration by the request of the city council, then eliminated a second time.]

Haber told the council they should take a look at the proposal. He suggested that the council was simply embarrassed by the flawed process and was now throwing everything out. He allowed that the council was tired of seeing him, and that the DDA was tired of seeing him – still, he wanted to know why the council didn’t want to look at the proposal.

Peter Zetlin offered his support for the idea of terminating the RFP process. He criticized a “resolved” clause in the resolution that he said made the financial return to the city primary and the beneficial use secondary. He asked the council to consider the larger body of analysis that concludes that public space creates significant economic vitality. He suggested eliminating or amending the resolved clause.

Odile Hugonot-Haber tried to address concerns she’d heard from people who say they don’t understand the idea of a “commons.” She talked about growing up in France, getting woken up by the clanging of cowbells as the cows went off to a common pasture. She also spoke of heating the raw milk to kill microbes, using the pasteurization technique developed by Louis Pasteur, not far from where she grew up. The field where the cows grazed was a commons, she said, as was the knowledge used to make milk safer to drink.

Thomas Partridge looped the idea of a community commons into his remarks when he asked the council what Christ would advise – protect the most vulnerable of Michigan’s citizens by providing access to affordable housing and transportation, or follow the proposal of Gov. Rick Snyder. That’s the kind of question, he suggested, that would be discussed in a community commons, if the mayor were to wave a magic wand to bring one about.

Ali Ramlawi introduced himself as a Ward 5 resident and the owner of Jerusalem Garden. He ticked through a number of complaints about the DDA, citing attitudes and actions towards him that he characterized as indifferent, borderline illegal, and dangerous. He cited specifically the sinkhole that had opened up behind his restaurant two weeks ago. [Ramlawi's business is located next to the Library Lot where the underground parking garage is currently under construction. Due to a breach in the earth retention system some 30 feet below grade, a sinkhole opened up just behind the building that houses his restaurant. Other Chronicle coverage: "Library Lot from Top to Bottom"]

Ramlawi noted that Fifth Avenue had been closed for seven months now and that he had been deprived of the quiet enjoyment of the land where his business is located without compensation or consideration. He complained about the road congestion and the dirt and dust from the construction. Running his business, he said, has been a hardship due to interruptions in trash collection, recycling collection and electric service. All he’d received, he said, was a string of Christmas lights, some parking validation stamps, and a sign on the construction detour signs indicating he was still open for business.

In winding up his remarks, Ramlawi said that Jerusalem Garden is a part of what makes Ann Arbor Ann Arbor: “I don’t want to be another city.” He called on the city council to “keep Ann Arbor organic” and “let it grow on its own.”

Lou Glorie congratulated the councilmembers who’d sponsored the resolution to reject the letter of intent, saying the proposal was “dead on arrival.” She called on the council also to issue a “do not resuscitate” order. She said the main problem from the beginning was a lack of public process. The conference center proposal had a small group of boosters who supported it, she said, but it had no community support. She said she wanted to see public process made a part of the resolution. She figured it would take as long as a year for the community to weigh in before another RFP could be issued.

Jean King told the council that she wanted to talk to them about openness of the process for deciding the use of the Library Lot. She told them the process had not been open, and that the council had not been open to Alan Haber’s proposal. Echoing the same sentiment expressed by Peter Zetlin, King said that instead of measuring proposals in dollars, the council should weigh proposals in terms of the benefit to the city.

Library Lot RFP Termination: Council Deliberations

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) led off deliberations by saying he was pleased to be a part of sponsoring the resolution. He characterized the process has having “borne a fruit we’re not interested in consuming.” He characterized the resolution as a way to “call the question” on Valiant’s proposal – an allusion to the parliamentary move “calling the question,” which ends debate by a deliberative body. He stressed that this does not reflect poorly on Valiant.

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) indicates he'd like to speak.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) noted that the RFP process had begun in response to the fact that with construction of the underground garage commencing, there had been an opportunity to alter the design of the underground garage to change the location of support columns – if a design were proposed that required that relocation. She said the whole financial world had shifted at the time when the city issued the RFP. The overall economic climate, she said, made it the worst possible time. As a result, she continued, the responses from proposers were along the lines of people just seeing what they could get.

Smith cautioned that stopping the process now should not preclude starting up a new process soon. She indicated some concern about the word “robust” modifying “public process” in one of the “resolved” clauses that sketched a path forward for determining how the Library Lot should be used.

Smith said “robust” is ambiguous. She pointed to the history of various city planning initiatives, starting with the Calthorpe study in 2005, through the A2D2 process and the adoption of the new Downtown Plan as part of A2D2 – this process included a vast amount of public input. She proposed an amendment to remove the word “robust.”

Taylor responded to Smith’s concern about the word “robust” by saying it was simply aspirational, not contractual language. Mike Anglin (Ward 5) read aloud a statement that essentially supported the idea that the process should involve a lot of public input, based on the fact that it’s public land.

Mayor John Hieftje said he wouldn’t support the amendment, saying that one of the resolution’s co-sponsors, Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2), who could not attend the meeting that night, had been in agreement with the resolution’s language.

Outcome on “robust” amendment: The council rejected the amendment, which drew support only from Smith and Tony Derezinski (Ward 2).

In continuing the council discussion on the unamended resolution, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) noted that they’d heard from many of the speakers and sign wavers in attendance that they would have preferred a different procedure. She said the council had reached a novel conclusion – that as a council, they’d recognized a need to say they were not satisfied with the result of the process. She said it was a sad moment. She noted that Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) had said a year ago it was time to hit the reset button and that Smith had said two years ago that the whole area of the site needed to be master-planned.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5).

For his part, Hohnke said he was not a fan of the city taking on financial risk – he would be supporting the resolution.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) indicated he would support the resolution. He allowed that everyone knew of his disdain for RFP processes. He did have some concern about the last “resolved” clause, which stipulates that the future use of the Library Lot will be one that results in property taxes being paid. He worried that this might preclude public buildings that might be built as part of a public-public partnership involving the Ann Arbor District Library or perhaps the Ann Arbor Housing Commission.

Derezinski indicated that he was only in slight disagreement with Smith. Given the number of significant decisions in front of the council – the budget, city-DDA relations, medical marijuana regulation – Derezinski wanted to postpone the issue and let things cool down. He expressed concern about the message that the council’s action would be sending to the outside world.

In arguing for a postponement, Derezinski said the process had yielded a lot of questions to which no answers had yet been given. He pointed to questions raised at the council’s March 14 working session, such as: Could the financial arrangement with Valiant Partners be arranged as an outright sale? He characterized a decision against Valiant’s conference center proposal that night as premature.

Derezinski spoke of the way that people mouth wonderful things about the inevitability of change and the need for growth, but when an actual project comes, people don’t necessarily act.

Margie Teall (Ward 4) read aloud prepared comments that focused on the failure of the council to see the RFP process through to the end. Valiant Partners, she said, has been left out of the process to date. Valiant had not been given a chance to respond to the questions that had been raised.

Teall said Valiant was more than willing to work with the council, and that there has to be room for negotiation. Valiant had not been given a chance, she said, to modify its proposal. She said it was true that Valiant was free to come back and offer cash for the air rights, and she hoped they would, saying they are a great team. Teall said Valiant has the best interests of the city at heart – financial and cultural. She said if people did not believe her, they could ask Josie Parker, director of the Ann Arbor District Library. Valiant had worked to integrate their proposal with the library, she said.

Taylor responded to Teall and Derezinski by saying he disagreed with them, though their sentiments were heartfelt, earnest and reasonable. He allowed that the early termination to the process did raise the question of the message it would send to the outside world. The city’s devotion to growth, said Taylor, is in the $5 million investment in the lot [the cost of the foundations for the underground garage, which will allow it to support a substantial structure on top]. He said he was committed to the final “resolved” clause [stipulating the financial benefit for future uses of the lot]. It was not a matter of closing all doors, he said, but rather only this one.

As a counterpoint to the objections based on early termination of the process, Taylor pointed out that continuing a process that has little hope of success would amount to leading someone on.

Sabra Briere and Sandi Smith, Ward 1 colleagues on the Ann Arbor city council, chat with the audience before the April 4 meeting.

Smith acknowledged Teall and Derezinski’s comments, saying she appreciated the dialogue. She allowed that passing the resolution would not allow the process to go all the way to the end, and that there had been no opportunity for a counter offer by Valiant. However, she said it’s a strong negotiating point to say, No, you’re not anywhere near what we’re talking about. She indicated dissatisfaction with Valiant’s willingness to put something in writing that put the city in a subordinate position, no matter how ambiguous the city’s RFP might have been. She characterized it as Valiant testing the waters to see how desperate the city is.

Briere immediately echoed Smith’s point about how it was a problem to put the city in a subordinate position – the city needs to be paid first, ahead of any other bank or loan payments, she said.

Teall complained that she believed the negotiations with Valiant could be flexible and that Valiant was in the process of changing its position even last week.

Hieftje said he respected Teall and Derezinski’s point of view. He noted that the conceptual sketch that had been associated with the proposal was unlikely to have ever been built, because of changing circumstances. He assured everyone that there was never any danger of the city accepting risk. For him, the questions reduced to whether he had confidence that the concept would work – he did not. Given that the University of Michigan was not willing to sign on to use the facility, he didn’t think it would be financially successful.

He then touched on several general points that seemed intended to support the final “resolved” clause and to reduce expectations that the parcel would now become a community commons. He spoke of adequate parking as providing a powerful economic development tool. He described how downtown development authorities were created to give downtown areas an advantage. He reiterated Taylor’s point about the $5 million investment in additional foundation strength being built into the underground parking garage to support a structure on top.

There are other parcels, Hieftje said, for people who would like to establish a community commons. The proposed greenway park portion of the city-owned 415 W. Washington parcel was one possibility, he said. In any case, the commons did not need to be located on the most valuable piece of real estate in the city. He cautioned that the city already included 2,100 acres of parkland and that adding a greenway park to it would require finding a way to pay for it. He also noted that the Ann Arbor District Library did not want to see a large commons located next to it.

Derezinski wondered what would happens next – would signs appear with slogans like “No Conference Center,” no matter what shape it was? He wondered what would happen with the proposed Fuller Road Station – would the city back off from its vision there? “Are we always going to back down from our vision?” he asked.

Teall, Anglin and Hieftje each took another speaking turn, touching on their previous positions.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) weighed in, echoing the complaints by Teall and Derezinski about the early termination reflecting a problem with the process. Higgins focused on more technical issues. For her part, she felt the council should be taking action on some recommendation from the RFP review committee. She noted that during the March 14 work session, the council did not have a current draft of the letter of intent. That part of the process was disappointing, she said – she felt like the work session had produced a mish-mash of information.

However, Higgins said she felt there was not a prayer that the proposal would pass, if it came in front of the council. The final “resolved” clause gave her hope, she said. The council needs to be clearer in its process going forward, she said, especially on the point of when the council will insert itself into the process.

Smith responded to Derezinski’s point about the amount of work currently in front of the council, saying she felt another related factor is the imminent departure of Roger Fraser as city administrator, who’s leaving at the end of April. There would be no one to take ownership of the project to carry it forward, she feared, though she allowed that an interim administrator could do that. However, with any interim, she cautioned, there tends to be some kind of void.

Briere wrapped up the deliberations by saying that she’d teased Smith in an aside about using the word “dialogue” when the word they needed was “discussion.” The council should have a discussion to identify exactly the process for finding a use for the Library Lot. That evening was not the time for that discussion, she said, but she is looking forward to taking part in it.

Outcome: The council voted to reject Valiant’s letter of intent and to end the RFP process for the Library Lot, with dissent from Derezinski and Teall.

The final “resolved” clause, which was often cited by councilmembers and public commenters, read:

RESOLVED, That future planning and proposals for this site shall recognize that this is a valuable, one of a kind parcel, and that whatever future project is contemplated for this site shall compensate the city with fair market value and a positive financial return, contribute to the tax base by paying property taxes, add vitality and density to Downtown and provide appropriate open space for public use.

DDA-Led Plan for Downtown Parcels

Before the council was a resolution that would establish a process to develop alternate uses for city-owned downtown surface parking lots, to be led by the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority.

The council had considered but postponed the resolution at its March 7, 2011 meeting, and before that at its Jan. 18, 2011 meeting. At the March 7 meeting, Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had complained that no revisions had been made to the resolution to accommodate objections made at the Jan. 18 meeting. [.pdf of the unamended resolution with the parcel-by-parcel plan] At that meeting, objections to the proposal included “resolved” clauses in the resolution that would (1) require placement of items on the city council’s agenda; and (2) under some circumstances require the city to reimburse the DDA for its expenses.

At its Jan. 5 board meeting, the Ann Arbor DDA board had approved a resolution urging passage of the council resolution, which had been circulated as early as the city council’s Dec. 20, 2010 meeting, when Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) had attached a copy of the draft resolution to the council’s meeting agenda, and alerted his council colleagues to it at that meeting.

DDA-Led Plan: Council Deliberations – Dissent

Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) began deliberations by offering amendments to the resolution that among other things added additional language about public process: ”Solicit robust public input and conduct public meetings to determine residents’ parcel-level downtown vision.”

Taylor also added clarifying language that would require the DDA to account for its direct costs – those costs would have to be reported along the way, in order to potentially have them reimbursed. Those amendments were undertaken as revisions to the resolution at the start of deliberations.

Taylor said the process would respect the desire for public input and would task the DDA with being the workhorse for the process, but would not grant control to the DDA to create the vision for the downtown. At various times in the process, the DDA would come in front of the council to check in.

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) addressed a number of specific questions to Taylor. For example, she wanted to know how tasking the DDA with this job would differ from hiring a consultant, like Calthorpe.

Taylor responded by stressing that this new endeavor was not meant to be redundant with prior efforts like the Calthorpe study. He allowed that using the DDA in the way described by the resolution is similar to hiring a consultant, but that it would tap the DDA’s energy and enthusiasm and understanding of what makes Ann Arbor work. It’s akin to consulting, he said, but it would be a consultancy among friends. The DDA would be better suited to the task, he said, than a private consultant.

Briere wanted to know why the city’s own planning staff could not undertake the work. Taylor indicated that the volume of work would exceed the city’s planning staff capacity.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) has served with Taylor on the “mutually beneficial” committee that has discussed the parcel-by-parcel plan with DDA board members over the last several months. Later in the council discussion he noted that the parcel-by-parcel process would not supplant the city’s planning staff, but rather would integrate it into the process.

Hohnke also emphasized that the city would not be ceding any authority to the DDA – the process would be a part of the mutually beneficial relationship.

Briere wanted to know if the DDA would be making any decisions. No, Taylor said, the DDA would make proposals, which would then be decided on by the city council.

Briere wanted to know if there would be any expense to the city. Taylor indicated that the work would be free to the city. The only case in which the city would wind up paying any costs would be in the event that a proposal was advanced to the final stage and was rejected by the city council for some reason other than that the project did not meet zoning code.

Briere posed a question that led to considerable back and forth between Taylor and Sandi Smith (Ward 1): What does the label “parcel-by-parcel” actually denote? Taylor portrayed the idea of the process as more like settling on a vision for all the parcels of downtown before prioritizing specific parcels for implementation of development. Smith offered a portrayal that seemed to allow for identifying first a specific area of the downtown to focus on, which could then proceed to development of specific parcels within that area – without necessarily master planning all the parcels within the downtown area.

[At a January 2011 DDA board partnerships committee meeting, Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor, had led board members in a conversation about the midtown character district – part of the A2D2 zoning regulations – as a way to make more concrete for board members what the parcel-by-parcel process might be like.]

Mike Anglin (Ward 5) worried that the process would not be sufficiently public, and asked what the information distribution system would be like.

Taylor indicated that all of the parcels that would be part of the process were identified on a map attached to the resolution. He stressed that without some measure of consensus from the community on a proposal, the process would go nowhere. He said he anticipated “quieter times” with respect to public reaction, not because they’d be quelling dissent, but because there would be a consensus on whatever came forward. He adduced the example of Zaragon II, which recently won approval without opposition, as the kind of process that might be hoped for. That mostly residential building is under construction at the corner of William and Thompson.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) objected to the Zaragon II example, saying that the project met the new A2D2 zoning requirements, which made it somewhat different from city-owned property.

Higgins went on to state that she still had a problem with the idea that the DDA would be considering all of the city-owned downtown parcels. She noted that while it’s DDA money that would be spent, it’s still taxpayer money. She felt it was an irreverent use of taxpayer money, and she’d heard nothing to sway her to support the resolution.

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) added a voice of dissent, saying that he, too, thought the proposal was too far-reaching. He didn’t feel like the DDA has the expertise to undertake the work – they’d simply be hiring a consultant. He suggested focusing just on the old Y Lot (at Fifth and William) and the Library Lot. He noted that the city faces a balloon payment on the Y Lot of $3.5 million. Those two properties are pressing issues, he said. He asked who at the DDA would be the project manager.

Taylor indicated that he didn’t understand Kunselman’s question. Kunselman clarified that when a project is reviewed by the city planning staff, it’s typically assigned to a specific staff member who takes responsibility for it.

Smith, who also serves on the DDA board, told Kunselman that the board’s partnerships committee would monitor the project. The partnerships committee, she told him, included two councilmembers, and regularly interacts with other government entities like the Ann Arbor District Library and the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority.

Kunselman said he could support the resolution if it were restricted only to the Library Lot and the old Y Lot.

DDA-Led Plan: Council Deliberations – Amendment/Consensus

Observing the clear dissent from Kunselman and Higgins, and possibly factoring in opposition from Briere and Anglin, Hieftje then indicated that he’d like to have a greater consensus and not pass the proposal on a mere six-vote majority. He seemed to float the idea of a postponement. Teall and Smith both indicated they wanted to see the proposal go forward that evening.

Smith then offered an amendment that added a resolved clause reducing the area subject to the process. The amendment reduced the area from the DDA district to a rectangle bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets.

Light pink areas are all city-owned land. The red outline area is the DDA tax district. The green rectangle is the smaller area of focus proposed by Smith – bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets. (Image links to higher resolution image. Map data is available on the city's website at a2gov.org/data)

Taylor was straightforward in stating his opposition to the amendment, starting with “I will absolutely not support this.” He noted that the proposal was the product of a great deal of conversation and that the DDA was very interested in applying a comprehensive view of all parcels in the downtown.

Hohnke also said he would not support the reduced area, but said he appreciated the effort to get a larger council consensus. He told Smith that she herself had been part of the conversation leading to the proposal that includes the entire downtown. He cautioned against trying to amend the proposal on the fly and said that the change would not be viewed as mutually beneficial by the DDA. It was too complex a task to be accomplished on the fly, Hohnke said.

Higgins bristled at the suggestion that the council should accept the proposal as it was, just because the city council and DDA committees had spent a long time discussing it already. She observed, “last time I checked,” a city council meeting is an opportunity for city councilmembers to add input.

Higgins observed that there are only four surface lots on the map that are not already built out – the Kline Lot, Palio Lot, Library Lot and the old Y Lot.

Later, Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) indicated that he would be inclined to defer to the members of the mutually beneficial committee who were doing the negotiations with the DDA.

Hieftje noted that Kunselman was trying to express a priority of where to focus and he thought that was reasonable.

Briere noted that the council had heard a presentation about 415 W. Washington earlier that evening, which was included on the map of properties associated with the parcel-by-parcel resolution. She suggested that what was needed was a way to politely modify the focus – not change the absolute priorities, but rather to change the focus.

Smith argued for her own amendment by saying that even the reduced area would be a huge undertaking, a big bite to chew off, she said. She didn’t think the DDA would be offended if the council said to prioritize the smaller area.

Taylor came back with the idea that the value of the parcel-by-parcel plan is its consideration of the downtown area as a whole. So reducing the area to the small rectangle does the process a deep disservice, he said. He offered an amendment to Smith’s amendment that essentially softened it to say that the city council believed the reduced rectangle likely represented the first opportunities for development. Smith was willing to accept the amendment, but Kunselman, who had seconded her motion, was not.

With his proposed amendment to the amendment not accepted as friendly, Taylor eventually insisted that it be put to a vote.

Outcome on Taylor’s amendment to Smith’s amendment: Taylor’s amendment nearly succeeded, resulting in a 5-5 split. Voting for it were: Hohnke, Smith, Derezinski, Taylor, and Teall. Voting against it were: Anglin, Hieftje, Briere, Kunselman and Higgins. Rapundalo was absent.

Returning to the deliberations on Smith’s amendment that would restrict the parameters of the process to focus on a reduced rectangle of the downtown, Hohnke said he felt it was oxymoronic to speak of “master planning” a subset of properties.

Smith countered by saying it allows the DDA to focus on a smaller area with the most opportunity.

Outcome on Smith’s amendment: The reduced area of focus to the rectangle bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets was approved with support from Hieftje, Smith, Briere, Kunselman, Teall and Higgins. Dissenting were Hohnke, Anglin, Derezinski and Taylor.

In final deliberations after the amendment was approved, Hieftje noted that the council was giving away the process but not the decision-making authority.

Kunselman reiterated his view that the old Y Lot needs to be put up for sale one way or another. He was resistant to the idea that the city council should be trying to do economic development work – it should be left to organizations like Ann Arbor SPARK. He also observed that the Library Lot, the Kline Lot and the Palio Lot had been surface parking lots all his life.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the DDA-led development process as amended to focus on the rectangle bounded by Ashley, Division, Liberty and William streets.

DDA-City Mutually Beneficial Negotiations

During deliberations on the DDA parcel-by-parcel proposal, Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) described the process as part of the mutually beneficial relationship between the city and the DDA. He noted that the city was asking the DDA to step up during tough economic times by making a financial contribution to the city, and the parcel-by-parcel plan was another way they’d identified where the DDA could contribute in a mutually beneficial way.

During his communications time, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) reported out on the financial contribution the DDA is making. Specifically, he gave an update on the progress of negotiations between the city and the DDA on the parking contract under which the DDA operates the city’s public parking system.

[At a Monday, March 28 morning meeting of the two so-called "mutually beneficial" committees, the city council's team asked their DDA counterparts to convey a request to the full DDA board to reconsider the board's previous consensus, reached at a full-board retreat. That consensus, as part of renegotiating a parking agreement with the city, was that the DDA would pay the city a percentage-of-gross parking revenues – 14% in the first two years of a future contract, and 15% in years thereafter. The city's position since January has been that the DDA should pay the city 16% of gross parking revenues in the first two years of the contract and 17.5% in years thereafter.

At a Wednesday, March 30 DDA committee meeting, attended by 10 of 12 DDA board members, they reconsidered the city's request and reached a consensus that they could live with 16% in the first two years, and for remaining years as well. That is, they came to agreement on the first two years of the contract, but a 1.5% difference persists for remaining years. That translates to $270,000, based on roughly $18 million in revenues projected for fiscal year 2014, which would be the third year of the contract.]

At Monday’s council meeting, Taylor reported that on the morning of April 4, the two mutually beneficial committees had met again, and that city councilmembers had asked the DDA committee to take back to the full board a request to reconsider their flat 16% position and to think about increasing the figure to 17.5% in the third year and years thereafter. Taylor reported that the request would be taken back to the full board, which meets on Wednesday, April 6. Taylor had indicated some possibility that the increased percentage would need to be coupled with an increase from the length of the contract term to 15 years. [The city has floated the possibility of a contract as short as seven years, but in recent talks the term seemed to have settled on 10 years.]

Taylor indicated that they were looking forward to reaching an agreement in short order, which can then be incorporated into city administrator Roger Fraser’s proposed budget. Fraser will formally present the fiscal year 2012 budget at the council’s April 19 meeting.

415 W. Washington Update

The council received a presentation with an update about planning work that’s being done by a group tasked with working on an “innovative process of community collaboration to explore a greenway park and arts center” at 415 W. Washington. The parcel at 415 W. Washington, located across from the YMCA, is currently used as a surface parking lot.

The group was called on by a Feb. 1, 2010 city council resolution to provide a progress report on their work at the council’s first meeting in February 2011. [Chronicle coverage of the Feb. 1, 2010 council meeting: "Council Restarts 415 W. Washington Process"] The report at Monday’s meeting was in response to that resolution.

The Greenway Arts Committee includes: John Hieftje, Carsten Hohnke, Margie Teall, Christine Schopieray (the mayor’s administrative assistant) on behalf of the city council; Joe O’Neal and Jonathan Bulkley for the Allen Creek Greenway Conservancy; and Tamara Real, Susan Froelich and David Esau for The Arts Alliance.

David Esau of the Arts Alliance gave the presentation for the group.

Highlights of the work included a report out on focus groups conducted with artists. The committee also had made site visits to The Russell in Detroit, the Park Trades Center in Kalamazoo, and the Box Factory in St. Joseph.

The committee had secured a donation that had allowed a grant writer to be hired, who’d help submit applications for several grants, but none had yet been won, Esau reported. He said the next step would be to raise $100,000 for additional studies on the old buildings located at the site, which are protected by the Old West Side historic district.

DDA Invited to Move

During his communications period at the conclusion of the meeting, mayor John Hieftje announced that he and councilmember Sandi Smith (Ward 1) would be presenting the Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority with an invitation to move its offices into newly renovated space on the lower level of city hall. Hieftje and Smith also serve on the DDA board.

That invitation will be made at the DDA’s Wednesday, April 6 board meeting. The DDA is contemplating signing a lease renewal for its existing space at 150 S. Fifth Ave., where the DDA currently pays $26 per square foot for 3,189 square feet of office space. Under terms of the new lease, the DDA would pay $16.75 per square foot in the first year of a 5-year deal, for a total of $53,415. After the first year, the amount would increase to $17.25, $18, $18.75 and $19.50 per square foot.

The DDA’s current arrangement with Weinmann Block LLC, which owns the building, ends on June 30, 2011.

Panhandling Law Tweak Gets Initial OK

The council considered a first reading of an amendment to the city’s code on disorderly conduct – the part dealing with solicitation, which is more commonly known as panhandling. To be enacted, the ordinance revision will need a second vote by the council and a public hearing.

The revised ordinance prohibits panhandling in one generally-defined additional location (in or within 12 feet of a public alley) and one specific location (within 12 feet of the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library.) [.pdf of revisions to existing ordinance as they were drafted at the start of the April 4, 2011 meeting]

The proposal to revise the law grew out of a street outreach task force, which was appointed at the council’s Sept. 20, 2010 meeting and charged with developing cost-effective recommendations for addressing the issue of downtown panhandling and the needs of those who panhandle. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Task Force Consults Panhandlers"]

At the council’s March 21, 2011 meeting, the council received a report from two members of the task force – Maggie Ladd, executive director of the South University Area Association, and Charles Coleman, a project coordinator with Dawn Farm. A recommendation contained in the report included revising the city’s ordinance on solicitation to prohibit panhandling in additional locations. [.pdf of street outreach task force report]

Sabra Briere (Ward 1), who chaired the task force, introduced the ordinance change, saying she hoped that the council would not need to discuss it too much, as it was the first reading.

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) wondered about a specific point that had been a part of the task force’s recommendations – though not a part of the ordinance change. It had to do with the mayor’s downtown marketing task force as the agent for implementing some of the educational steps – providing people with information about alternatives to giving money to panhandlers. Smith wondered if it was a role that the marketing task force was willing to take on. Mayor John Hieftje indicated that it was.

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) had a question about some phrasing in the existing language of the ordinance, which was not proposed to be changed: ” … from a person who is a person who is in any vehicle on the street.” She suggested it was redundant and should read ” … from a person who is in any vehicle on the street.” [The awkwardness could have arisen in the original due to a parallel with a different part of the ordinance "... a person who is a patron at any outdoor cafe or restaurant."]

Hieftje indicated he appreciated the rapid work of the task force.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to give its initial approval to a revision to the city’s panhandling ordinance.

East Stadium Bridges Project

Before the council were four items related to its East Stadium bridges replacement project: a road right-of-way easement from the University of Michigan for $563,400; two utilities easements from UM totaling $426,650; and an unrecorded water utilities easement.

The city was able to get TIGER II federal funds formally “obligated” for that first right-of-way phase of the project – city council held a special meeting on March 16, 2011 to sign the necessary agreement.

Mayor John Hieftje signs documents related to East Stadium bridges easements. Standing next to him is assistant city attorney Mary Fales.

The approval of the easements at the April 4 meeting will allow the city to proceed with getting an additional $13.1 million of TIGER II grant funds obligated that have already been awarded for the second phase of the bridge replacement project. A continuing federal budget resolution passed by the U.S. Congress – which would preserve the TIGER II funding – expires on April 8. Previous proposals by House Republicans have included cuts that would have eliminated the TIGER II funding.

The council is acting with some urgency to get the funds obligated before the program is eliminated – if, in fact, it is eliminated.

The urgency was reflected in the fact that the council took a brief recess immediately after the easements were accepted, in order for mayor John Hieftje to sign the documents that needed to be forwarded to the Michigan Dept. of Transportation.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve the four easements related to the East Stadium bridges reconstruction.

Washtenaw Bus Pullout

The council was asked to approve the award of a construction contract worth $159,107 to Fonson Inc. The company will build a bus pullout as part of a bus transfer center on eastbound Washtenaw Avenue, east of Pittsfield Boulevard.

In a related item, also before the council was authorization for the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority for the city to manage construction of the bus pullout – the project will be paid for with federal stimulus funds provided to the AATA. The AATA board authorized its side of the MOU at a special meeting held on April 1.

The bus pullout is part of a larger project – a transfer center on the south side of Washtenaw Avenue at Pittsfield Boulevard, opposite Arborland mall – which will include a “super shelter.” For now, only a center on the south side is being contemplated, because topographical and right-of-way issues pose challenges on the north side.

Construction on the bus pullout is to begin later in April and be completed by June of this year.

The need for a transfer center at that Washtenaw Avenue location, of which the bus pullout is a part, stems from the termination in July 2009 of a previous arrangement with Arborland shopping center, which provided for a bus stop and transfer center in the Arborland parking lot.

Outcome: The council unanimously approved both items related to the Washtenaw Avenue bus pullout.

Furniture Purchases

Before the council were two emergency purchase orders for used furniture, but for different reasons.

The first purchase order was for $32,291 worth of used furniture – office cubicles and work stations – to be purchased from Steven C. Proehl Office Interiors. The furniture will go in the first and sixth floors of the city hall building, which are currently being renovated.

A staff memo describing the purchase order refers to a lease expiring for a Southfield, Mich. business, which has resulted in the availability of furniture at one-quarter to one-third the cost of furniture on the regular used furniture market. The emergency purchase order is being requested to take advantage of the savings. Reportedly, one consequence of the used furniture acquisition is that the old chairs around the council table will be replaced.

The second purchase order was a supplement to one that the council had authorized at its Dec. 6, 2010 meeting, for $39,000 worth of furniture for the 15th District Court, housed in the city’s new municipal center. The court had anticipated being able to use furniture it already owned in some areas of the new facility, but an on-site inspection showed that it was not usable as anticipated. The resolution passed by the council at its April 4 meeting increased the purchase order by $17,240, to $56,240.

During brief council deliberations, Sabra Briere (Ward 1) asked city administrator Roger Fraser to review the background to the emergency nature of the purchase orders. In elaborating a bit on the information provided in the staff memos, Fraser said that once the furniture had been moved into the new court facility, it was apparent that it would not be usable, without using something like a chainsaw to modify it.

Outcome: The council voted unanimously to approve both emergency purchase orders.

Sakti3 Industrial Development District

At its previous meeting on March 21, 2011 , the council set a public hearing on the establishment of an industrial development district (IDD), which could lead to tax abatements for Sakti3. The company is a University of Michigan spin-off focused on advanced battery technology, headed by Ann Marie Sastry. The IDD would be established for just under an acre of land, located at 1490 Eisenhower Place. Sakti3 is reportedly considering an investment of $2.4 million in new equipment and hopes to hire five additional people.

At Monday’s meeting the public hearing was held – no one spoke.

Outcome: The council voted without comment to establish the IDD, which now allows for Sakti3 to apply for the tax abatements.

Communications and Comment

Every city council agenda contains multiple slots for city councilmembers and the city administrator to give updates or make announcements about important issues that are coming before the city council. And every meeting typically includes public commentary on subjects not necessarily on the agenda.

Comm/Comm: City Administrator Search

Marcia Higgins (Ward 4), who is chairing the city administrator search committee, reminded councilmembers that they’d been asked for input on a job description to be used in the job posting. The target for completing that work is April 8, Higgins said.

Comm/Comm: Oxbridge Area Student Safety

Katie Rosenberg and Stephanie Hamel addressed the council, representing the University of Michigan Student Safety Commission. Rosenberg said that as president of the Panhellenic Association, she saw how safety is an issue that’s consistently discussed. She told the council that the Oxbridge neighborhood – an area east of Washtenaw Avenue, between Angell Elementary School and Berkshire Road – is packed with different kinds of student housing. In December 2010 and January 2011, two armed robberies had taken place in the neighborhood, which had involved four students.

The steps that Rosenberg said had been taken in response to the incidents included: creating the student safety commission, holding a safety forum attended by UM Dept. of Public Safety officials, and allocating some funding by a Greek Community committee to install some lights.

Hamel reminded the council how in 2008, when concerns were raised about safety in the Packard Street area, the city had responded by selecting that neighborhood as a pilot area for converting standard streetlights to LED lights – 58 conventional streetlights had been converted to the brighter, more reliable technology. She asked the council to extend the concept to the Oxbridge neighborhood.

Hamel said that the students wanted to partner with the city council on the issue, by beginning a conversation about how to make that student neighborhood safer and brighter.

During his communications time, Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) noted that he served on the council’s student relations committee and had attended the safety forum that Rosenberg had mentioned. As the father of two 17-year-old twin girls, Kunselman said he could vouch for the fact that the safety concerns were legitimate. He said he was looking forward to helping out.

Comm/Comm: Reminder of MLK

Sabra Briere (Ward 1) reminded her colleagues that on the same day as the council meeting, April 4, in 1968 Martin Luther King had died. During a recess in the meeting, Briere told The Chronicle that on that day in 1968, she’d attended a speech given by Bobby Kennedy in Indianapolis, in the wake of the news about King’s assassination.

Comm/Comm: Energy Challenge Update

The council received an update on the city’s energy planning from Andrew Brix, the city’s energy programs manager. That included a report on results from a February energy challenge. The goal of the February program was for households to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by at least 5%. According to the city, the average Ann Arbor household has an annual carbon footprint of 40,700 pounds of CO2 per year, which translates to a reduction goal of 170 pounds of CO2 per month.

Around 130 people signed up for the challenge. Based on the online reporting tool provided on the website created for the challenge, participants reduced their carbon footprint by an average of 5.4% in February 2011, resulting in a total reduction of 250,441 pounds of CO2.

Brix’s presentation mentioned the February challenge just briefly, taking a broader look at the city’s energy policy, which includes a goal established in 2006 of 30% renewable energy. Mayor John Hieftje had initially set a goal of 20% in 2005. Brix reported that the goal of 20% had been met, though he allowed that they rounded up from 19.8%. The city achieves its renewable energy percentage through landfill gas capture, two hydroelectric dams and a green fleets program. They’re still working on meeting the 30% goal, which came from Ann Arbor’s energy commission.

Brix also noted that the city itself accounts for only 3% of all the energy used in Ann Arbor, so their efforts will also target households.

Comm/Comm: City of ONE

At the council’s April 4, 2011 meeting, a mayoral proclamation was issued, declaring Ann Arbor a “city of ONE.” ONE is an international group that works against extreme poverty and preventable disease by advocating for better development policies and trade reform. ONE’s board of directors includes Bono, lead singer of the band U2.

Comm/Comm: Medical Marijuana

Chuck Ream addressed the council about the zoning and licensing regulations that will be coming for final consideration at the council’s April 19 meeting. He complained that the legal department is “sticking a dagger” in the ordinance. He said that Michigan has a crystal clear law that a lot of people hate, but 79% of Ann Arborites had voted for the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act written just the way it is. He complained that the city attorney is trying to inject inspection and searches into the city’s ordinances.

Ream called on the council to separate dispensaries from cultivation facilities. Dispensaries should be included in the ordinance, he said, but cultivation facilities should not.

Present: Mike Anglin, Margie Teall, Sabra Briere, Sandi Smith, Tony Derezinski, Stephen Kunselman, Marcia Higgins, John Hieftje, Christopher Taylor, Carsten Hohnke.

Absent: Stephen Rapundalo.

Next council meeting: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 at 7 p.m. in the council chambers at 301 E. Huron St. [confirm date]

The revised ordinance prohibits panhandling in one generally-defined additional location (in or within 12 feet of a public alley) and one specific location (within 12 feet of the downtown location of the Ann Arbor District Library.) [.pdf of revisions to existing ordinance as they were drafted at the start of the April 4, 2011 meeting]

The proposal to revise the law grew out of a street outreach task force, which was appointed at the council’s Sept. 20, 2010 meeting and charged with developing cost-effective recommendations for addressing the issue of downtown panhandling and the needs of those who panhandle. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "Ann Arbor Task Force Consults Panhandlers"]

At the council’s March 21, 2011 meeting, the council received a report from two members of the task force – Maggie Ladd, executive director of the South University Area Association, and Charles Coleman, a project coordinator with Dawn Farm. A recommendation contained in the report included revising the city’s ordinance on solicitation to prohibit panhandling in additional locations. [.pdf of street outreach task force report]

This brief was filed from the city council’s chambers on the second floor of city hall, located at 100 N. Fifth Ave. A more detailed report will follow: [link]

From left to right: DDA board members Gary Boren, Roger Hewitt, John Hieftje, and Keith Orr. (Photos by the writer.)

In their one business item, the board approved an amendment to the contract with Village Green to develop a 244-space parking deck as the first two stories of a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building, City Apartments – a 156-unit residential planned unit development (PUD) at First and Washington.

Once the parking deck portion of the building is completed and issued a certificate of occupancy, the city of Ann Arbor has agreed to issue $9 million worth of bonds to purchase the deck, and the DDA has agreed to make the payments on those bonds. The amendment to the contract provides DDA consultants access to the site during construction activities to check that construction methods conform to standards that will ensure a 75-year life for the deck.

On the city council’s agenda for Monday, Feb. 7, 2011 is their own approval of the same amendment to the Village Green contract. The contract amendment is part of a timeline put in place on Aug. 5, 2010, when the city council approved an extension of Village Green’s option to purchase the First and Washington city-owned parcel for $3 million. That timeline calls for Village Green to purchase the land by June 1, 2011.

The $3 million proceeds from the hoped-for Village Green deal were part of the financing plan for the city’s new municipal center, and would have no direct impact on the current general fund’s $2.4 million deficit that’s forecast for the FY 2012 budget. However, during deliberations some DDA board members accepted the point made by their colleague Newcombe Clark – that there are likely indirect connections between the completion of the Village Green transaction and the city’s overall budget picture, at least in terms of cash flow.

In reports and communications entertained by the board, highlights included: (1) a continued interest on the part of the University of Michigan to absorb a segment of Monroe Street into the UM Law School campus; (2) complaints from the property manager at 416 Huron St. about disrepair of an alley and adjoining sidewalks in the area, as well as a lack of maintenance on property owned by the railroad; and (3) an elaboration by the mayor on some remarks about Borders that he’d made and that had been reported in the media.

Village Green

The board considered a resolution to approve an amendment to the contract between Village Green, the DDA and the city of Ann Arbor, under which terms Village Green will build a 244-space parking deck as the first two stories of a 9-story, 99-foot-tall building with 156 dwelling units: City Apartments.  The amendment to the contract, among other items, provides DDA consultants access to the site during construction activities to ensure that construction methods conform to standards that will ensure a 75-year life for the deck.

Village Green: Background

The parking deck under City Apartments would be owned by the city of Ann Arbor and managed by the DDA. Here’s how that would work: Once the parking deck portion of the building is completed and issued a certificate of occupancy, the city of Ann Arbor has agreed to issue $9 million worth of bonds to purchase the deck, and the DDA has agreed to make the payments on those bonds.

The city council authorized the issuance of the bonds at its Oct. 4, 2010 meeting, but the city will not actually issue them until construction of the deck is complete and a certificate of occupancy is issued for it. [After the DDA's bricks and money committee meeting on Jan. 26, 2011, Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, clarified for The Chronicle that the certificate of occupancy refers just to the parking deck – it will be completed before the apartments are ready for occupants to move in. Issuing the certificate of occupancy will be contingent on the parking area being safe for motorists to park their cars while construction continues on the upper floors.]

The timing of the bond issuance was part of the council’s deliberations at its Oct. 4, 2010 meeting:

Stephen Kunselman (Ward 3) led off deliberations by expressing his concern about what happens to the bond if the deck does not get built. The city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, explained that the payment is not owed until there is a certificate of occupancy issued for the City Apartments project, and thus the bonds would not be issued until the project was substantively complete. Crawford allowed for some flexibility in that respect, if the city saw that it could get a better interest rate by issuing the bonds a few months before the project is actually complete.

Based on the timeline approved by the council in connection with the extension of the purchase option, Crawford said, the project is supposed to be built by around May 2012.

By way of background, the City Apartments planned unit development (PUD) won city council approval on Dec. 1, 2008. Village Green had an option to purchase the land parcel at First and Washington, where City Apartments is planned, which was good through May 31, 2009, but was extended by the city council at its May 18, 2009 meeting through Dec. 3, 2009 – with the possibility of two three-month extensions that could be authorized by the city administrator. The reason given for the extension was to allow time for Village Green to arrange financing. Both additional extensions were granted by city administrator Roger Fraser, which gave Village Green a purchase option through June 1, 2010 2011.

But at its June 21, 2010 meeting, the city council approved an additional brief extension through Aug. 5, 2010 in order to allow time to establish a specific set of milestones that need to be completed. Then, at its Aug. 5, 2010 meeting, the council approved another extension to the purchase option through June 1, 2011. A detailed set of milestones was included as part of the resolution, which were intended to increase the probability that a purchase took place before the option ran out.

After the city council extended Village Green’s option to purchase the land, DDA board member Newcombe Clark had noted that the milestones that had been developed generally left little time for review by the DDA. From The Chronicle’s Sept. 1, 2010 DDA board meeting report:

Clark picked up on the fact that the turnaround time for DDA activities and involvement were all relatively short – in many cases a day. He suggested that the DDA “politely ask” that it be kept in the loop on those matters.

The amendment to the Village Green contract that was before the DDA board on Wednesday was part of the timeline of milestones. So where on the set of milestones did the amendment fall? It called for the DDA board to vote on the amendment on Nov. 3, 2010 – around three months earlier. The same amendment is on the city council’s agenda for Feb. 7, 2011.

By way of additional background, the $3 million transaction for the land parcel at First and Washington is part of the city’s financing plan for the new municipal center that is very close to completing construction. The city’s contingency strategy for dealing with the possibility that the deal doesn’t go through was discussed at a budget workshop last year:

City Budget: Debt

Sandi Smith (Ward 1) was puzzled by a line in the budget summary that reads “Loan payment for First and Washington – $150,000,” noting that she did not think the city owed any money on the property.

[City administrator Roger] Fraser allowed that Smith was correct – the city does not owe money on the property. However, the city is expecting $3 million from the sale of the property in connection with Village Green’s City Apartments project, which has site plan approval from the city, but has not moved forward yet due to lack of financing.

Fraser described the $150,000 as a contingency of sorts, borrowing some money to “tide us over” if the $3 million from the sale of that First & Washington property does not come through sometime soon. The option to purchase agreement has been extended once by city council through December 2009, with a provision that the city administrator can authorize two 3-month extensions, which he has done. When the second extension runs out at the end of June 2010, the council will need to act if there is to be an additional extension.

At the council’s Monday budget meeting, the city’s CFO, Tom Crawford, indicated that he’d had recent conversations with Village Green and that they were feeling positive.

Mayor John Hieftje asked Crawford to confirm that the city was within its legal limit for debt load – the city cannot have debt in excess of 10% of the total state equalized value of property. Crawford indicated that the city was at 2.6%, and he thus felt comfortable with the city’s debt level. Crawford also cited other cities’ debt load – Grand Rapids, Lansing and Kalamazoo – as comparable. Ann Arbor’s bond rating, said Crawford, was in the top 20 in the state.

This past week, Crawford confirmed by email for The Chronicle that no money had been borrowed as a part of that contingency strategy and that if any were to be borrowed, it would need to receive approval from the city council.

Village Green: Board Deliberations

Roger Hewitt reminded the board of the project’s background, highlighting the fact that the DDA would be purchasing the deck based on a fixed amount per parking space. He noted that the DDA board had already approved a contract and what was before the board was an amendment. The language of the amendment, Hewitt said, was meant to ensure that the 75-year life of the parking deck is reflected in the construction methods. He said there are a number of engineering and construction concerns that are addressed in the contract amendment, helping ensure that the DDA is “getting what we are paying for.”

Hewitt told the board that the language had been reviewed by Carl Walker Inc., the DDA’s engineering consultant for the parking structures it manages for the city, as well as by Jerry Lax, the DDA’s legal counsel. He declared his confidence that the DDA would be getting a deck with a 75-year life.

Susan Pollay, executive director of the DDA, stressed that Village Green’s interest in quality construction is aligned with the DDA’s interest. Village Green’s intent, she said, is not to sell the building but to continue to own and operate the apartment building. So constructing a deck of sufficient quality that will last 75 years is important to Village Green, she said, because the parking deck is effectively the basement of the apartment complex they will own and operate.

[At the DDA's bricks and money committee meeting the week before, Pollay had reported the possibility of increasing the building height by a few feet, to avoid the need to dewater the site during construction of the foundations. She said that Kevin McDonald, in the city attorney's office, was looking at the issue to determine whether that change to the building plan could be made at the administrative level, or if it would need to return to the city council for approval.]

Before the meeting started, Newcombe Clark had said he was not trying to be negative about the Village Green amendment. He did, however, want to draw out a number of points.

In deliberations, he reviewed with Pollay that the DDA would be managing the deck and that the city would own it. Hewitt further clarified that the DDA would manage the City Apartments deck in the same way it manages any other city-owned parking structure. Pollay offered Liberty Square as an example of how the arrangement would be handled – the city owns the deck and the rest of the structure is owned privately. Hewitt noted that the private space and public space are flip-flopped in Liberty Square, as compared to City Apartments – in Liberty Square, the private component is at the bottom of the building.

Clark stated that he was happy the project was now moving forward. He had concerns, however, about how the milestone timeline would be kept. He wondered what the impact would be of not keeping to the schedule and how that relates to the DDA’s 10-year plan. He noted that they were nine weeks behind schedule. [Based on the original Nov. 3, 2010 schedule for the vote, Clark was understating the delay by a few weeks. Queried by email, Clark joked to The Chronicle that this was perhaps the first time he'd ever been accused of understating something.]

Clark said he understood that hard work was being done to make up the time they were behind, but he worried that the bond issuance was scheduled to take place 12 days from then. He said he didn’t think that the DDA was ready for bonds to be issued. Pollay clarified that it’s the city that will be issuing the bonds, and that will not take place until the parking deck’s certificate of occupancy is issued. That’s when it becomes real, she said. And the city council has already authorized issuance of the bonds, she explained.

Clark moved on to the timeline item indicating that the construction documents are supposed to be 100% complete within three weeks. Pollay indicated that this part had been modified – construction specifications would be provided in early March and they would be able to approve any changes through June. Pollay indicated that Village Green is hoping to begin construction in July.

Clark then noted that the closing on the $3 million deal comes very close to the point when the city needs to finalize its annual budget. He expressed concern about the impact of a deal not going through on the city’s current budget. He allowed that the $3 million of proceeds from Village Green’s purchase of the parcel is slated to go into the fund that is paying for the new municipal center, which is nearing completion. But he noted that “money is money,” saying that a $3 million hole somewhere has to be plugged with something, which would leave a hole somewhere else. [The city's eventual strategy, if it becomes necessary due to the Village Green deal not going through, as reviewed in the background above, is to borrow the money in some form.]

Clark reiterated that he supported the project and said he hoped that Village Green would build the project. But he returned to his concern about the timeline not being met. He said the DDA kept moving things around in its 10-year financial plan, so he felt like he’d have a better idea of what the DDA’s 10-year plan will actually be in a month or two from now.

[If the Village Green project does not go through, it means that the DDA would be relieved of a $9 million obligation to make bond payments for the deck purchase. So Clark appeared to be putting the discussion in the general context of the still-unresolved parking contract negotiations between the city and the DDA. The city's budget planning currently assumes a $2 million payment from the DDA to the city that is not part of the current parking contract. As the negotiations have reached a critical point, some DDA board members have begun to express concerns about the DDA's ability to satisfy the city's desire to supplement its general fund. Some board members are also concerned about the DDA's own ability to complete specific projects they view as part of the DDA's mission.]

With respect to the Village Green timeline, Hewitt characterized it as the “city’s negotiating timeline, not the DDA’s timeline.” Any timing issue, Hewitt told Clark, is the city’s issue, not the DDA’s. Clark wondered if it weren’t the same issue. Hewitt ventured that the discussion seemed to be getting into a “larger realm,” and Clark replied that this was exactly his concern – that the larger issues were getting mixed into the discussion due to the compressed timeline.

Hewitt came back to the point that the DDA does not need to make any payments until the parking deck has a certificate of occupancy. That’s several years away, he said. Hewitt said that construction would typically be two years for something like this. As far as the larger issue of the city’s budget, he said, he didn’t feel it was their place to comment.

Russ Collins provided a way out of the conversation between Clark and Hewitt by telling Clark: “Point noted.” But he continued by saying, “The issues you’re raising don’t affect the material facts of this resolution.” It could affect the city’s cash flow, Collins allowed, which could in turn affect indirectly what the DDA was talking about.

Bob Guenzel sought clarification that it was a cash-flow issue and not a budget issue for the city. Clark indicated that it was a one-time payment for the sale of an asset. Guenzel supposed that the city had recorded the transaction as a receivable, but Clark said there was no actual purchase agreement yet. That is, Village Green has not yet executed their option. If there was already an agreement to purchase or Village Green had already purchased the land, Clark said he’d feel more comfortable about possibly needing to change the DDA’s budget, given that the city already has the $3 million budgeted.

Guenzel wrapped up the deliberations by saying, “As Russ said, it’s a point.”

Outcome: The board voted unanimously to approve the Village Green contract amendment. The city council will vote on the same amendment at its Feb. 7, 2011 meeting.

Communications, Committee Reports, Commentary

The board’s meeting included the usual range of reports from its standing committees and the downtown citizens advisory council. Every board meeting includes two opportunities for public commentary – one near the start of the meeting and the other at its conclusion.

Comm/Comm: Bricks

John Splitt reported out from the bricks part of the bricks and money committee, saying that concrete continued to be poured for the underground parking garage under construction on the city-owned Library Lot on South Fifth Avenue. A total of 3,000 cubic yards of concrete had been poured this month, Splitt reported. The largest mass pour of the project, he said, is due to take place in late February and will involve 5,000 cubic yards. The speed ramp on the east side of the garage is 80% complete, he reported, which will ease the construction workers access to the bottom of the construction pit.

The Fifth and Division streetscape improvement project has been shut down for the winter, but wiring of streetlights in connection with that project does continue, Splitt said.

He also announced that immediately following the meeting there would be a tour of potential different space for the DDA offices for anyone who was interested – next door at the City Center building, at the southwest corner of Huron and Fifth.

Comm/Comm: Money

Roger Hewitt reported on the second quarter financial picture for the period ending Dec. 31, 2010 or midway through the fiscal year. Highlights of Hewitt’s remarks included the fact that the DDA had received from the city nearly all of the taxes it captures through the TIF (tax increment financing) district, and those amounts are within 2% of what had been budgeted.

Hewitt also noted that reduced operational costs in the parking fund reflected the efforts of Republic Parking manager Mark Lyons to reduce costs. A drop in parking revenue compared to the budgeted amount, said Hewitt, reflected a delay from July to September in the implementation of a parking fee increase.

Hewitt also pointed out that the transfer into the parking maintenance fund will be less, because the DDA had requested of its parking structure engineering consultant, Carl Walker Inc., that time-sensitive priorities be identified. No critical maintenance would be delayed, he said. Only those activities that were more appearance-related – like painting, for example – would be delayed. Deck-coating or resurfacing, he said, would not be put off.

With respect to the quarterly parking figures, Hewitt concluded that usage continued to appear stable.

Comm/Comm: Partnerships

The partnerships committee meeting report was given by Russ Collins. Part of his report consisted of a report on the status of the DDA’s energy-saving grant program, a two-phase program that allows downtown businesses to conduct an energy audit, paid by the DDA, and to install improvements based on the audit, the cost of which is matched up to a $20,000 cap.

[At the partnerships meeting from the previous month, which The Chronicle attended, DDA executive director Susan Pollay stressed that the DDA had not spent more than was in the budget for the energy grant program – a conclusion that could have erroneously been reached by looking at the total that the DDA would spend, if every participant in the program installed improvements that resulted in the maximum $20,000 match, and if the DDA decided to match the expenditure. At the partnerships meeting, Pollay stressed that it was a "first in" program.]

Collins also reported that the PACE program, which the state legislature passed late last year, could be complementary to the DDA’s energy-saving grant program.

Collins also indicated that the DDA’s mutually beneficial committee had reported to the partnerships committee how the city council had reacted to the outcome of the DDA board retreat – when there’d been a board consensus that the percentage-of-gross figure the board wanted to consider as payment to the city was a few points lower than the city was hoping for. [Chronicle coverage: "Parking Money for City Budget Still Unclear"]

Collins also reported that there’d been discussion of the new role for the DDA in redeveloping downtown city-owned surface parking lots. Wendy Rampson, head of planning for the city of Ann Arbor, will be attending the next partnerships committee meeting – on Wednesday, Feb. 9 at 9 a.m. – to discuss how the new A2D2 design guidelines will be integrated into the city’s planning-related code. City staff has been asked to bring a map showing the specific parcels to be redeveloped. [At the council's Jan. 18, 2011 meeting, councilmembers deliberated on a resolution that would have articulated this DDA role in redevelopment of the surface lots. Some councilmembers mentioned the lack of a map identifying the parcels as one barrier to their adoption of the resolution – which was ultimately postponed. Chronicle coverage: "DDA-City Deal Stalls" and "Ann Arbor Hotel First to Get Design Review?"]

Comm/Comm: Economic Development and Communications – SPARK

Joan Lowenstein gave the report from the economic development and communications committee. At their meeting, Lowenstein reported, they’d reviewed existing communications efforts about the downtown and the DDA. That had established a context, she said, for exploring different kinds of communication that the DDA could pursue in partnership with others, or in identifying gaps that the DDA could fill.

She reported that Newcombe Clark had walked the committee through a plan from his current course of study at the UM business school, that had provided a good jumping off point for the discussion. A goal that the committee identified, said Lowenstein, is to focus communication on the many positive assets that downtown has to offer. So the DDA would need to identify its role in that communication. That could range from communicating about downtown assets to residents, visitors and employees, to communicating about the DDA itself.

Lowenstein said that Jennifer Owens, vice president of business development for Ann Arbor SPARK, would attend the next meeting of the committee on Feb. 23, 2011 to explore how SPARK and the DDA could align their efforts. [Committee meetings are open to the public and posted online on the DDA's calendar.]

John Mouat wondered what the impact on SPARK would be with key personnel departing for Lansing. He was referring Gov. Rick Snyder’s recent appointment of SPARK’s CEO Michael Finney and SPARK’s director of marketing and communications Elizabeth Parkinson to positions in the Michigan Economic Development Corp. (MEDC). Amy Cell SPARK’s vice president for talent enhancement, is also joining the MEDC.

Lowenstein said she felt that the SPARK positions would be replaced, and that it reflected greater interest in collaboration between the MEDC and SPARK, with perhaps some kind of “satellite MEDCs” being established. If anything, she concluded, SPARK’s role will increase rather than decrease. Bob Guenzel, who serves on SPARK’s board of directors, said that his understanding was that SPARK would be moving forward as before. Mayor John Hieftje, who also serves on SPARK’s board of directors, said there is an evolving discussion of the relationship between MEDC and various economic development groups like SPARK, and it was somewhat “in flux.” He said he had a lot of faith in Finney.

Comm/Comm: Transportation

Reporting out from the transportation committee was John Mouat, who said they’d spent their last meeting selecting items from the transportation demand management plan for discussion: (1) providing transportation and evening parking information for evening employees; (2) adding moped/motorcycle parking downtown; and (3) thinking of parking spaces as serving a variety of different uses, from electric vehicle spaces to taxi service.

Mouat also called the board’s attention to the committee’s work as it relates to the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority: the AATA’s 30-year transportation master planning effort; the Plymouth-State connector study; the possibility of making the downtown Blake Transit Center (BTC) on Fourth Avenue more of a multi-modal facility; and encouraging the use of the BTC as a hub for MegaBus, University of Michigan blue buses, Michigan Flyer, and Greyhound.

On a lighthearted note, Mouat reported on a conversation that an alternative transportation option, given the snowfall, might be dog sleds, which could, according to Susan Pollay, result in a need for barking structures. Collins ventured that the whole notion was a howling success.

Comm/Comm: Alley on the Edge

Bill Gross, property manager for 416 W. Huron, addressed the board during public commentary about a range of concerns related to the property – which sits just west of the railroad bridge and just east of the new HAWK traffic signal, across the street from the new YMCA building.

Huron Street runs east and west. This is the western edge of the DDA tax capture district. The view here is to the northeast, just west of the railroad tracks. From left to right: Ann Arbor School of Yoga, 416 W. Huron property, Delonis Center.

Some Chronicle readers may recognize Gross and the Huron Street property from the Art in the Barn holiday art show that Gross organizes in the yellow barn, located behind the painted gray brick building that fronts Huron Street.

Gross advised the board that he took care of the the property along the railroad tracks, which is actually the railroad’s responsibility – picking up trash and mowing the grass, he said. If he didn’t do it, nobody would, he told them. Referring to the walk-arounds in the downtown area that the board sometimes did, he asked them to tell him when they were coming – he’d make sure not to mow, so that they could see what it would look like if he didn’t take care of the property.

Gross also pointed out that the sidewalks along the street are in disrepair – they are tilted and exacerbate the standing water problems that are prevalent in the public alley between the 416 W. Huron building and the Ann Arbor School of Yoga building located just to the west.

Gross also raised concerns about behavior issues with people he said were residents of the Delonis Center homeless shelter, located slightly up the hill from the 416 W. Huron property, past the railroad bridge. He described an incident when someone was standing on the railroad track yelling and the response he received from the police when he called was that he was asked to keep an eye on that person.

[In a followup phone interview after the board meeting, Susan Pollay told The Chronicle that the alley was one of those that the DDA had not yet repaired – they'd done an inventory of alleys in the downtown area and had undertaken improvements in many of them to ensure that stormwater drains were reconstructed and that the downspouts from buildings fed properly into the stormwater drain system. The sidewalks, she said, had been slated to be repaired as part of Huron Street improvements that had been planned by the DDA.

Those improvements had originally been conceived after the "decade of parking structure repair" in the 1990s, when the DDA board had identified three key corridors as a next priority to focus on: Huron Street, Fifth Avenue and Division Street. Because Huron Street is a state trunk line, which requires coordination with the Michigan Dept. of Transportation (MDOT), it was treated separately, she said. The Fifth and Division streetscape improvement project – much of which was done this past summer, and which will be completed next spring – is the result of that strategy.

Where do the street and alley improvements stand as DDA projects? Huron Street improvements are still on the list of possible projects for the DDA to undertake. At the DDA's most recent retreat, board member Newcombe Clark ensured that Huron Street was one of the items board members could vote for during their dot-voting exercise. As part of that exercise, finishing the alley improvements received two board members' votes as short-term priorities.]

When board members began a back-and-forth with Gross, board chair Joan Lowenstein noted that it was not the board’s practice to engage in that kind of discussion, but she felt that some leeway was warranted.

Mayor John Hieftje suggested that Gross take up the behavior issues with the Delonis Center staff. Gross said he’d gotten only lip service from the shelter, but also that it’s difficult for shelter staff to see down the hill past the railroad bridge to the property he manages.

Russ Collins suggested that it was the DDA staff – not the board – that would be in a better position to address Gross’ concerns.

Clark then stated that he was biased because his mother owns the Ann Arbor School of Yoga, immediately adjacent to the 416 W. Huron property – the two buildings share the alley in question. But he went on to point out that the behavioral issues are difficult to address without officers assigned to a particular beat – Clark has often advocated for exploring the possibility of bringing back police beat patrols to the downtown area. He described how the alley flooding and the sidewalk improvements were part of projects that the DDA had planned for its district. “It’s still our district,” he pointed out. Board approval was necessary in order to finish those projects, he observed.

And that is the reason Gross was there before the board, Clark said: Gross had come to him and Clark had told him to come address the board. “The buck has stopped with us at this point. … We can choose in our priorities whether or not we want to address this.”

Comm/Comm: Downtown Citizens Advisory Council – Monroe Street

Ray Detter reported out from the previous evening’s downtown citizens advisory council meeting that Richard DeVarti, owner of Dominick’s on Monroe Street, had attended the meeting along with his brother Dave, a former DDA board member. They were again concerned about the possibility of the city allowing the University of Michigan to absorb a section of Monroe Street into the law school campus. Detter said the CAC saw no benefit to the city in allowing that move, citing the loss of street parking, not just for Dominick’s but also for the multi-family residential units in the area. Detter said it would be a disaster for Dominick’s business. [Previous Chronicle coverage: "UM Pitches Plan to Close Monroe Street" and "Expansion of Campus onto Monroe Street?"]

Comm/Comm: Streetlight Outage Reporting, Greenway

Ray Fullerton addressed the board on the subject of reporting streetlight outages. He noted that it is important for residents to report them, because the city itself only does an annual inspection and it could take as long as a year for a streetlight to get replaced.

Fullerton also noted that in connection with the current Parks & Recreation Open Space (PROS) plan adoption process, it had been reported that the DDA felt the possibilities for extending a greenway southward towards the UM athletic campus were not as great as in the other direction. He said that there was definitely the possibility of pathways to the south.

Comm/Comm: Downtown Marketing Task Force

Mayor John Hieftje said the downtown marketing task force, which had been meeting for a number of years, is currently on hiatus. The task force meetings are an opportunity to bring together members of the downtown business associations, he said, along with councilmembers. He noted that Margie Teall (Ward 4), Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) as well as Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) had attended the task force meetings regularly along with him, the mayor – Hieftje pointed out that the name of the task force is actually the Mayor’s Downtown Marketing Task Force and has been around for a very long time.

They’d been thinking about how to recast the task force, possibly reducing the frequency of meetings to a quarterly basis. He made a pitch to DDA board members to attend the task force meetings, saying that there are interesting conversations that take place between people who are actually doing things. Hieftje said that while Susan Pollay, the DDA’s executive director, was nearly always present at the task force meetings, he felt the task force’s effectiveness was limited due to the lack of attendance from board members. It could be an enlightening conversation, he concluded.

Comm/Comm: Comments on Borders Clarified

Mayor John Hieftje announced that he had been quoted in the media a couple of weeks ago when he’d been asked by a couple of different news outlets about Borders Group, the Ann Arbor-based bookstore chain. Borders, he continued, was a concern due to reports of a possible bankruptcy and what might happen in the wake of that. [The mayor was quoted in a Jan. 9, 2011 Crain's Detroit Business article by Daniel Duggan as follows: "If the company were to fold altogether, the biggest blow to the city would be the big hole in the downtown," Hieftje said. "While it would be disappointing, the downtown market has been hot and I wouldn't be surprised to see that retail space snapped up."]

After he was quoted, the mayor reported, he had an appointment with the person who handled Borders’ real estate, and they had both acknowledged that it was unlikely that Borders would close its stores. If Borders did close stores, then the downtown Ann Arbor store would be one of the last to close, Hieftje ventured. Hieftje continued by saying that the person he’d talked with was opening up channels to explore ways to fill the retail space if the need came up.

One of the principle concerns that had been expressed, Hieftje said, was a perceived lack of parking. What they’d heard from other retailers is that it’s a great spot, but they wondered if there was sufficient parking. Hieftje went on to say that he’d pointed out that the new underground parking garage under construction on South Fifth Avenue would provide additional spaces, and that the person he’d spoken with was happy to hear that. The last thing he’d like to see, concluded Hieftje, is for Borders to move.

Present: Gary Boren, Newcombe Clark, Bob Guenzel, Roger Hewitt, John Hieftje, John Splitt, Russ Collins, Keith Orr, Joan Lowenstein, John Mouat

Absent: Sandi Smith, Leah Gunn

Next board meeting: Noon on Wednesday, March 2, 2011 at the DDA offices, 150 S. Fifth Ave., Suite 301. [confirm date]

The corners of Washington & Division, clockwise from top left: NW (former Ann Arbor News building); NE (411 Lofts); SE (McKinley's Towne Center); SW (parking lot, site of proposed Ann Arbor Hotel). Image links to larger file.

Much of the conversation between residents and First Hospitality’s Ira Ury revolved around the city’s downtown design guidelines. Even before the meeting, as Ury and resident Ilene Tyler introduced themselves, Tyler wanted to know if First Hospitality had used the design guidelines to develop the schematics on display.

Ury explained that his team had used the draft of the design guidelines that is available on the city’s website. But that draft, which dates from late 2009, has undergone considerable revision since February 2010, when the council appointed a task force to undertake further study and make a recommendation. The task force has been meeting almost weekly for the better part of the past year.

The task force unveiled its draft at a city council work session on Monday, Jan. 10. One key difference between the 2009 draft and the version the task force has now unveiled is the re-introduction of the original design guidelines advisory committee’s October 2007 recommendation for a design review process. It would be a mandatory process overseen by a design guidelines review board, with voluntary compliance by petitioners. But as Ray Detter, president of the Downtown Citizens Advisory Council, put it to Ury on Wednesday, if a developer doesn’t comply with the recommendations of the review board, “Everyone will know!”

Depending on the timing of city council approval of the design guidelines, First Hospitality’s project could be the first site plan that undergoes a formal design guidelines review process. At the council’s work session, Ward 4 councilmember Marcia Higgins said she planned to attach the final draft to the city council’s Jan. 18 agenda as a communications item, and to bring it forward for council approval at the Feb. 7 meeting.

What exactly are these design guidelines? Where did they come from? When might they be approved?

Design Guidelines, Zoning Background

Design guidelines differ from zoning regulations in that zoning regulations typically deal with quantifiable, measurable concepts like building heights and setbacks, while design guidelines involve more subjective judgments like the appropriate use of materials or the pedestrian orientation of a structure. The Chronicle described the difference this way in a September 2009 report on a joint work session of the city council, planning commission and Downtown Development Authority:

Almost every child learns in school that a haiku is a short poem with three lines – lines that adhere to a 5-7-5 syllable count pattern. But only some children learn that not all poems conforming to that 5-7-5 rule are good haikus. For example:

I saw a tower/Looming, stretching really tall/Is it ever high!

Many readers will recognize those lines as a generally failed poem. But what specifically makes it a bad haiku, even though it follows the rule? The first-person narrative, the lack of seasonal referent, the lack of any kind of “aha!” moment – there are any number of ways in which that poetic effort fails to meet basic haiku design guidelines.

Similarly, a proposed new downtown Ann Arbor building that follows a basic height rule of “180 feet maximum” – specified in the zoning regulations – might still be generally recognizable as a poorly-designed building.

Knowing it’s poorly designed is one thing. But it’s another thing for someone to say what exactly makes a building poorly-designed, or in a happier case, well-designed. That requires some knowledge of building design principles – just as critiquing a haiku requires some knowledge of haiku design principles. Perhaps the building’s entrance can’t be easily spotted, or its walls rise in a sheer, windowless face from the sidewalk to its full height.

Mayor John Hieftje began the council’s work session on Monday by saying that sometimes good things take a long time. And in fact, the evolution of the zoning and design guidelines process dates back at least to September 2006, when the Ann Arbor city council approved A2D2 (Ann Arbor Discovering Downtown) as the next step in the Downtown Development Strategies Project. At that point, the project already had a three-year history dating from October 2003. Two of the five priority actions for A2D2 were (i) to overhaul the downtown zoning, and (ii) to establish design guidelines.

Some in the community had supported city council approval of the new A2D2 zoning regulations, only if approval of design guidelines was given at the same time. And in the spring of 2009, the city council appeared ready to approve the zoning package. However, a back-and-forth between the planning commission and the city council – driven largely by questions about the appropriate zoning designation of the South University area – caused a delay.

That delay meant that the original plan – to wrap up the zoning package in late spring 2009, leaving the summer to focus on design guidelines – had to be altered. As zoning regulations stalled in the council from spring through the fall of 2009, the possibility emerged that approval of the design guidelines could re-align itself with the timeframe for approval of zoning regulations.

But the city council gave its final approval to the new zoning regulations in November 2009 without approving the design guidelines. Faced with approving zoning regulations along with design guidelines that included no mandatory review process, the city council decided to proceed with the zoning approval, leaving the design guidelines work to a task force, which it appointed in February 2010. The sentiment among those who strongly supported the concept of design guidelines was that it would be better to delay their approval, if it meant that a mandatory review process could be established, even if compliance would be voluntary.

Design Guidelines, Zoning Timeline

Here’s a timeline overview of the A2D2 zoning and design guidelines work, with links to Chronicle coverage. Also useful is the city planning staff’s documentation of the current task force’s work and the history of prior design guidelines work.

• 2006 Oct. 3: City council appoints design guidelines advisory committee: Christine Crockett (citizen at large), Kurt Brandle (design professional), Ron Emaus (city planning commission), Damian Farrell (design professional), Eric Lipson (city planning commission), Joan Lowenstein (city council), J. Bradley Moore (design professional), Alice Ralph (citizen at large).
• 2008 Nov. 17: Community engagement/briefing by city planning staff on A2D2 plan. ["Feedback Wanted: Downtown Zoning Revisions"]
• 2009 Feb. 19: Planning commission adopts Downtown Plan, assigning all of the South University area to “core” or D-1 zoning.
• 2009 March 3: Planning commission recommends adoption of A2D2 zoning ordinance. ["Planning Commission: 170 Feet for South U."]
• 2009 March 9: City council holds work session on A2D2. ["Council Begins Downtown Zoning Review"]
• 2009 March 23: City council convenes to hear public comment on A2D2. ["A2D2 Zoning in Home Stretch"]
• 2009 April 1: Ann Arbor Downtown Development Authority weighs in against character districts as part of the A2D2 zoning. ["DDA: No Character District Zoning, Please"]
• 2009 April 6: City council amends A2D2 zoning and approves it on first reading in a way that will not allow the council to adopt the Downtown Plan as adopted by the city’s planning commission. Specifically, the council wants a provision for an interface D-2 area in the South U. area. ["City Council Moves Towards Height Limits"]
• 2009 April 20: City council formally votes against adoption of Downtown Plan as adopted by planning commission. Chronicle coverage of April 20, 2009 city council meeting: [link]
• 2009 May 12: Planning commission convenes work session to contemplate possible revision to Downtown Plan. ["What's Your Downtown Plan?"]
• 2009 May 19: The planning commission allows a D-2 interface area in South University, but it’s smaller than the D-2 area approved by the city council. ["Planning Commission Draws Line Differently"]
• 2009 June 15: City council approves Downtown Plan with smaller D-2 interface district. ["City Place Delayed, Downtown Plan OK'd"]
• 2009 July 6: City council postpones A2D2 zoning as first reading item. Chronicle coverage of July 6, 2009 city council meeting: [link]
• 2009 July 20: City council again postpones A2D2 zoning as first reading item. Chronicle coverage of July 20, 2009 city council meeting: [link]
• 2009 Sept. 8: City council approves A2D2 zoning approved at first reading. [''City Council Begins Transition"]
• 2009 Sept. 14: Joint work session held by city council, planning commission, DDA. ["Downtown Design Guides: Must vs. Should"]
• 2009 Oct. 4: City council discusses design guidelines at Sunday caucus. ["Another Draft of Downtown Design Guides"]
• 2009 Oct. 5: City council holds public hearing on design guidelines at its regular meeting. ["Mandatory Process Likely for Design Guides"]
• 2009 Oct. 6: City planning commission recommends adoption of design guidelines.
• 2009 Nov. 15: City council discusses guidelines at Sunday caucus. ["Zoning, Design Guides on Council's Agenda"]
• 2009 Nov. 16: City council gives final, second-reading approval to A2D2 zoning. Holds public hearing on design guidelines. ["Downtown Planning Process Forges Ahead"]
• 2010 Jan. 19: A2D2 steering committee dissolved. Members were Marcia Higgins (city council), Roger Hewitt (DDA board), Evan Pratt (planning commission).
• 2010 Feb. 1: City council appoints A2D2 design guidelines task force [Chronicle report of the Jan. 31: 2010 city council caucus] Members are: Marcia Higgins (city council), Kirk Westphal (planning commission), Tamara Burns, Bill Kinley, Richard Mitchell, Peter Pollack, Norm Tyler.
• 2010 Nov. 15: City council extends Dec. 6, 2010 deadline for design guidelines task force to complete its work. Chronicle report of the Nov. 15, 2010 city council meeting: [link]

City Council Work Session: Design Guidelines

At the Jan. 10, 2011 city council work session, held at Community Television Network studios on South Industrial Highway, members of the task force unveiled the latest draft of the design guidelines, which task force member Norm Tyler said the group considers finished.

At their next Wednesday meeting, which the task force expects will be its final gathering, members hope to flesh out the role and timing of the design board review process as it relates to other elements of a site plan review.

Three of the task force members besides Marcia Higgins (Ward 4) addressed the city council at its work session: Norm Tyler, an urban planning professor in Eastern Michigan University’s department of geology and geography; Tamara Burns, a local architect with HopkinsBurns Design Studio, and Bill Kinley, founder of Phoenix Contractors.

After the Jan. 10 city council work session, Andrew Cluley of WEMU radio inteviews Norm Tyler, a member of the design guidelines task force.

Tyler led off by introducing much of the history of the document that they’d started with – the draft from September 2009. He said the task force set about to simplify and to clarify. He described how the task force undertook a major simplification. They didn’t want any fluff, or commentary on how beautiful the world is. Each sentence was subjected to the test: Does this sentence tell an architect what to draw on a page?

The task force’s document consists of two chapters. Chapter one contains the general design guidelines, divided into three levels: (1) context and site planning, (2) buildings, and (3) building elements. Tyler introduced the council to examples of guidelines from each of those categories. From the context and site planning category:

Pedestrian walkways should be well integrated with existing infrastructure in a way that supports pedestrian connections within and outside the areas of the proposed project.

From the building category:

When a new building will be larger than surrounding structures, visually divide it into smaller building modules that provide a sense of scale.

From the building elements category:

Clearly define a primary entrance and orient it toward the street.

Any guidelines, said Tyler, are confined to the first chapter. This is a difference between the current task force draft and the earlier one, which attempted to specify design guidelines for each of eight different character districts within downtown Ann Arbor: South University, State Street, Liberty/Division, East Huron, Midtown, Main Street, Kerrytown, and First Street.

The eight character districts appear in the second and final chapter of the task force draft. In that chapter, the task force has tried to introduce the reader to what makes each of the character districts unique. South University, for example, is typified by its diversity. Midtown is described as a civic corridor.

Other ways the task force draft is different from the earlier version include: only good examples are illustrated; only photographs from Ann Arbor are included; discussion of material already in the zoning ordinance has been eliminated; and recommendations on a design review board have been developed, which would fit into the existing site plan review process used by the city.

Tamara Burns gave some of the rationale and benefits for having a design review board. They include the fact that a design review that comes early in the process will provide early feedback to a project’s design team. As an architect, she said that the field had evolved away from a “master builder” model to a more collaborative team-based process. Feedback from a city design review board would fit into that culture, she said. Members of the design review board would have design expertise, and their process would be open to the public, she said.

Left to right: Bill Kinley, member of the design guidelines task force; Stephen Rapundalo (Ward 2); and Roger Fraser, city administrator.

Following Burns, Bill Kinley stressed that the design review board process would not, however, be simply another opportunity to have another “bite at the apple.” The public would have ample opportunity to weigh in during the public hearings held by the planning commission and the city council as part of any site plan review, as well as at the required citizen participation meeting.

Kinley read aloud a statement written by local architect Richard Mitchell, a task force member who was not present at the work session. Mitchell’s sentiments reflected his belief that the vast majority of developers are looking for a long-term investment in the community and aim to create something that will be a source of pride for the community. Getting early advice from the design review board, which would have insight into a particular building location and its context, would be valuable.

During council discussion, Christopher Taylor (Ward 3) wanted to know what the rationale was behind the mandatory process but voluntary compliance associated with the recommendations of the design review board. Tyler explained that they did not want to make the design review a regulatory process, which it would become if compliance with its recommendations were mandatory. Taylor wanted to know if there were other examples of a mandatory/voluntary scheme, and Tyler told him that Seattle and Boulder had such systems and were successful.

Carsten Hohnke (Ward 5) said he trusted that the goal in identifying design guidelines was to identify enduring principles as opposed to reflecting fads. But he wanted to know what the process would be by which the guidelines would be reviewed. Higgins told Hohnke that the guidelines would be reviewed annually.

Tony Derezinski (Ward 2) asked if the design board’s review process would apply to planned unit developments (PUDs) as well as matter-of-right projects. Yes, said Higgins. She mentioned in her concluding remarks that the draft they’d shown to members of the community had received a positive response.

One issue that seems likely to be the focus of the task force’s final meeting on Wednesday is where exactly the design board’s review process will fit into the site plan review timetable that is currently in place. Higgins indicated that it would likely be just before the required citizen participation meeting or concurrently with it.

Citizen Participation Meeting: First Hospitality

The two representatives of First Hospitality who introduced the Ann Arbor Hotel project to residents at last Wednesday’s citizen participation meeting were director of business development Ira Ury, as well as president and chief operating officer Bob Habeeb.

Ira Ury, director of business development for First Hospitality Inc., hosted the citizen participation meeting last Wednesday for the proposed Ann Arbor Hotel on South Division. (Photos by the writer.)

Ury gave a brief introduction to First Hospitality, which has been in the hotel business for 26 years, he said. Headquartered in the Chicago area, they currently manage and operate 4o hotels in the Midwest. Their first hotel was a Hampton Inn in Bloomington, Ind., built in 1985, so they have experience building, owning and operating hotels in midwestern college towns, he said, including a Hampton Inn in Ann Arbor. He stressed that First Hospitality is not a real estate development company, but rather an owner/operator of nationally franchised hotels.

The proposed project, Ury said, would be a 9-story, 104-room, LEED-certified hotel with an outdoor plaza. At the fourth floor, there would be a 5-foot stepback, pulling the building back from the lot lines. The entrance would face South Division Street. Habeeb described how the use of a mix of building materials and the stepback design had resulted in a handsome building, although he allowed that the black-and-white rendering made it difficult to see.

Attendees of the meeting drew out additional information. The project was based on a business decision that a hotel would be viable there. The city of Ann Arbor would not be financially liable – First Hospitality is investing its own money. The level of LEED certification is planned to be at least Gold.

Ury allowed that hotel occupancy in the area might be 60%, but that reflects an average – there are some hotels that are currently at 80%, he said. A nationally franchised hotel would add value to downtown Ann Arbor, he said. Hotels are in and of themselves community centers, he noted.

Some attendees seemed skeptical that there would be an adequate market for a downtown hotel. Who would stay there? Ury and Habeeb described a range of guests, from business travelers to University of Michigan visitors. Ury said their project was not connected to proposals for the city-owned Library Lot, which include a hotel and conference center. He did not think that a 104-key hotel would do a lot of group business, though he expected they would have a positive and collegial relationship with any hotel that might be built on the Library Lot, a parcel located on South Fifth Avenue. The city is exploring proposals for developing a project on top of an underground parking structure being built there.

At left is architect Brad Moore, chatting with Eric Lipson, a former planning commissioner. The two were members of the original A2D2 design guidelines advisory committee. They attended the Jan. 5 citizens participation meeting on the Ann Arbor Hotel.

Attendees expressed concern about the impact on the traffic pattern on Division Street. By way of background, a previous PUD (planned unit development) proposal for a hotel at the same location had been rejected by the Ann Arbor city council on Jan. 22, 2008. The decision was based at least in part over concerns that cars exiting the hotel would need to cross two lanes of traffic to make a right turn onto Washington Street, in order to park at the Liberty Square parking structure. One difference between then and now are the bump-outs that have been installed along Division Street as part of the Fifth and Division streetscape project that the DDA has nearly completed. The 2008 proposal had divided the city planning commission on a 4-4 vote.

Ury said they would do the required traffic study. There would be a self-park option as well as a valet option. Valets would be trained to proceed correctly to the parking structure, not cutting across several lanes of traffic. There would be 44 spaces in the Liberty Square structure reserved for the hotel.

There is currently not a plan for retail or a restaurant on the ground floor, Ury said. Responding to that part of the proposal, Roger Pothus – whose clothing store Renaissance is located on Division across the street from the proposed hotel – suggested that the hotel should be built a couple stories taller, so that some kind of use besides a hotel lobby could be considered for the ground floor.

The sentiment expressed by Pothus was echoed by Ward 1 city councilmember Sabra Briere, who allowed that she might be labeled a heretic for saying so. She noted that on occasion when she traveled, she had stayed in hotels with their lobbies on the second floor. She told Ury that he had 180-feet – alluding to the maximum height limit in the D-1 zoned district where the hotel is proposed. She told him that the input from the meeting and from the design board in the future was not meant to destroy the project, but to make it better.

Attendees pressed Ury about whether the project would incorporate the city’s new design guidelines. Ury assured them that First Hospitality would consider any new guidelines adopted by the city and, if necessary, adapt their design to those standards.

There has not been a final decision about which national franchise the hotel would operate under, Ury said, and there would be “trade dress” items for the building required by different franchises. There is flexibility within those trade dress items, however, and the city would ultimately decide the issue. Asked by attendees what materials they had in mind for the building, Ury said they would be high quality materials, quipping that it would not be made of cardboard.

Much of the design critique from attendees focused on the north side of the building, where the design indicates that a plaza will be located. The feedback was that it needs to be more clearly defined as an alternative entrance and needs generally to be made more transparent – with additional windows. Pothus fully supported the idea of some kind of micro-plaza, giving as an example the area just south west of Main Street along William Street’s north side, near where his clothing store was formerly located.

Just west of Main Street on William are these two benches and a trash can that Roger Pothus described as one of Ann Arbor's smallest but most densely used parks. His comments came in support of the idea of a micro-plaza in connection with the proposed Ann Arbor Hotel on South Division.

Ray Detter suggested that the black-and-white schematic looked like the building at Washington & State that “everyone hates.” Detter was referring to the Cornerhouse Lofts building, commonly known as the Buffalo Wild Wings building. Karl Pohrt, owner of the former Shaman Drum Bookshop on South State, once described the building in an interview as “butt ugly.”

As the meeting concluded, attendees expressed the hope that there would be an additional citizens participation meeting, at which more detailed colored schematics would be available. They gave the meeting held last year by Zaragon Place II as an example of the level of detail they were hoping for.