 with the routine justice for all. Thank you, we have all alders present, I believe, except Alderman Bourne, who is excused. Alderperson Svalio is on the phone, is that correct? Correct, Marcus, are you there? Thank you. It sounds like you're in a satellite circling the globe, but welcome. Here's what we're going to do tonight. As you know, our only topic of discussion is the proposals that have come before the council for the armory property. We're going to have a public forum with nine speakers. We have nine speakers. Each of them will be able to speak for just three minutes. After that, I am going to ask the developers or proponents of the proposals who are present in the audience just to stand up and introduce themselves. If there is no objection, I would like to offer them floor privileges, in case any of the alders have questions about a specific proposal. And we would ask those folks to come up and just answer those questions for us. Sound OK? Yes. Perfect. All right, we can get going. Bill Thiel. Can you state your name and address for us, please, Bill? Absolutely, Bill Thiel. 1703 North 37th Street in Sheboygan. OK, you'll have three minutes. Thank you. Putting a timer up there for me. I am. I thought you said the timer. There you go. Hey, guys, how you all doing again? I'm coming in for the Committee of the Whole. I think as you know, when I was an older person, I was very passionate about the armory, saving the armory. And obviously, I still am. I was part of the group that was putting the proposal together to help save the armory, which I think is a very good one. Just wanted to let you know I was kind of disappointed this time with how the city went around, or how the city went and evaluated the proposals this time by coming up with a committee, which by being around a lot of people already were pretty negative towards the armory to begin with. I think that could have been a little different. And it kind of showed in the point values of how that was set up. I don't think it was really set up for somebody who wanted to redevelop the armory to have a favorable score in that system. So I'd like to see something different done there. Obviously, not much we can do about that now. But I just wanted to point that out with my feelings on that. Another thing I'd like to get an answer on is at the Historical Committee meeting, they put a 90-day hold on the project of demolition. And as far as I understood about the 90-day hold, is that was a given opportunity for some type of development to come forward to preserve the armory. As far as I'm concerned, two of them came forward. And those have never been addressed. They never went back to the Historical Society Committee to be addressed as a viable option of saving the armory. I feel we're missing a step here. And I think we really need to take a look back at this. And I think if it goes back to that area, they'll look at the two proposals that you have, the safety armory that are viable. And I think those should get voted on before even this RFP process goes along. So hopefully we can get an answer to that later on today. We did a lot of great things. I know when I was an alderman, I remember the last day sitting over there, we took a vote to save this great building here, City Hall. I think we got a couple of great places in the city of Sheboygan, this being one, and the army I believe is another one. And it's definitely worth saving. We did the vote, we took care of that. I know you guys have seen pictures of how gorgeous this place is gonna look in a few years. And it's just amazing. And I think the two proposals for the armory can do the same thing for that property down there and have great things come back down to the armory. To finish up, I'd like to just do a quote, I'm kind of a quote guy. Former First Lady Michelle Obama said, there are still many causes worth sacrificing for. So much history yet to be made. I feel the armory is worth sacrificing for and it still has a lot of history to give. So please save the armory. Thanks guys. Thank you. Dane Schaefer. Dane Schaefer, 3728 South 13th Street in Sheboygan. Thank you. You'll have three minutes. I'm the founder and a member of the Armory Community Project. This started for me by offering some creative ideas for a long running point of contention in our community about the city's desire to take away what has been my property, our property for decades and give it away with tax incentives to a private entity. I hope to spark leadership to engage the community to find a solution for the property, but that unfortunately never happened. My goal was not to organize citizens and create a formal proposal for the city, offering to take control of, renovate and operate the property. But I did, we did in less than three months because that's how important this is to me and our community. We created and presented a proposal that far exceeded the expectations of many within city leadership. In fact, I believe our proposal was so good that the task group, hopefully inadvertently, projected some of their preconceived opinions of our group in their assessment of our proposal. They say we would require funding from the city of an unknown amount. However, the proposal clearly asks only for the escrow of funds already allocated to clearing the land. That was included so the city would have the funds to remove the building should we fail to raise the necessary capital. Our proposal clearly stated that our organization would operate the facility, yet again, they claim otherwise. Finally, they say because our organization is new, we don't have any experience renovating or operating facilities. Ignoring that the lead members of this organization are an architect that specializes in historic renovation and a family that founded and operates a four unit regional restaurant chain. Do you feel comfortable making a decision on an issue this contentious based upon their recommendation when they got this much incorrect on just one of the proposals? See, I'm not here today to convince you that you need to select our proposal or that I have all the answers. I'm more than secure enough to admit that I don't and while I think our proposal is the best that was submitted, it's not perfect. Are you able to recognize when an issue is so important to the constituents you represent that it requires special attention? Are you willing to admit that taking away our property and giving it away while ignoring community voices is probably not the healthiest course of action for the city? At very least, I believe it is up to Common Council to independently review and consider every proposal in public meeting. Alternatively, you file the RFP proposals and either put the fate of the armory to referendum or engage the public and work together to find the most amicable solution for what has been for many years and should remain our property. Thank you. Thank you. Marie Stephenson. Hi, Marie. Can you state your name and address for us, please? Marie Stephenson, 305, yeah, 305 Scottson Avenue. Okay, Marie, you have three minutes. Okay. Good evening. My name is Marie Stephenson and tonight I am speaking in my capacity as a fellow neighbor of the armory and resident in the Ellis Historic District. Tonight you'll be urged by the review committee to accept a proposal from Scott Crawford, Inc. in regards to a 122 apartment slash retail space. The review committee will tell you that this is the best proposal because there is significant housing demand in Sheboygan and this will help bolster the housing availability to attract and retain new residents. I'd like to address three points tonight for your consideration voting against this plan and full support of repurposing the armory. I myself can personally attest to the limited housing. When I moved to Sheboygan in March of 2017, there were limited apartments to rent and a select few homes for sale. However, there were limited choices. There were still choices. Since that time, the city has seen a number of housing complexes constructed and finished, including the Encore Apartments, Portsgate Phase I and now High Point and all of the above are still accepting renters. The firm argument that there's no housing choices in Sheboygan is null. Sure, if we want to keep growing and progressing as an innovative city, no question, we will need more housing. But the situation is not so dire that we need to tear down historical buildings to accomplish this. The recommended proposal also includes first floor retail. If I'm not mistaken, there's currently retail space already available in the heart of Sheboygan with great incentives to move in, some that advertise a year of free rent. But where are the businesses filling these spaces? Between South Pier, downtown and Riverfront Drive, there is an abundance of commercial space already available that remains vacant. I would be challenging any developer with a proposal that includes retail space by asking what they're going to do differently to attract businesses as well as workers before we have yet another commercial entity that remains empty. Kind of the point of this project, right? When looking at the recommended deal, Scott Crawford, Inc. in the city are mutually benefiting in this situation plus the sum of 122 residents that could potentially live there. However, this doesn't seem to speak to the strategic plan that has been implemented by the city. A strategic plan that you as a council approved. Number one on that list of improvements is quality of life. And the city's number one key strategy for doing this is, quote, refurbish, maintain, develop and or expand public use places and spaces, end quote. I just don't see how one can argue that 122 apartments is worth losing the army when it doesn't, armory when it doesn't benefit the city as a whole. I asked, am I done, sorry. I asked the members of this committee to send apartment developers to other areas in the city. And they won't have to look far as the latches across the street from the army has conveniently been on the market for some time. As a resident, I can only hope that you take the voices of those who elected you into full consideration and vote on a plan that not only saves the armory, but repurposes it into something useful that will bring value to the city. I ask that you invest in your current residents and give them the quality of life they deserve while holding the city accountable to their strategic plan. That lake is our biggest asset. Let's not waste it. Give residents more than just condos and parks down by the lake. Make it a destination. Thankfully, there happens to be a local initiative amidst these proposals that's willing to do just that. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Thank you. Mike Burnett, you just ate your name and address from your place. Mike Burnett, 1925 South 26th Street. Thank you, you'll have three minutes. All right, it's the armory, my favorite topic. And it's like, last thing I wanna see is apartments, but not my choice. And I like what I've heard from you guys so far. And I agree with Dane on one thing he said very much that at this point, you now have a whole bunch of proposals. This is the first the city, the citizens, are learning what they are. We haven't even totally learned what they are. A few of the groups put out there, pretty good. I mean, pretty much everything. A few of them put out pretty much everything. Some of them, we know they want apartments, this and that, da, da, da. We have studies, this is based on studies. We need apartments, blah, blah, blah. I'm looking at stuff online. And I'm seeing in candidates things, somebody's talking about the armory, and this is really coming up council elections. And condos in the Senate, you know, it's like, well, people are saying, well, yeah, these condos, it's enough, but well, these condos are full. So I'm looking up condos, and yeah, these condos are full, but 188 grand was the price on these condos when they were built. And I'm talking right now, I'm talking the rice ones, but these numbers apply to most of the condo projects that went down there. You look right now in Zillow, we're getting $88,000 a year on those places. That's what they're assessed at. That's less than half of the value when they were built. You take that around town from Cross Creek to, you name it, that is the story. You look online for rental apartments. You can find a pretty damn good place for around 750 bucks for utilities, not far from where this is going to be. This is Sheboygan. You go on the own Sheboygan County Economic Development Corporation site, and you look at where they're telling what we need, and they're telling about a very much smaller number than what we're building of apartments, into $600 to $850 range. Not seeing a man, not at all. And then to make it even worse, we're building such a great number of apartments based on this. The original survey that they did was at a retreat mostly people from Collar and Plymouth, around 100 and some people. They had about 18 people who said, I would definitely love to live in downtown Sheboygan. If you had apartments for $6 to $850, you would all this cool stuff. And it's like, hey, great. And you look at it, you had like 18 out of 100, nine of them already lived in downtown Sheboygan, which means nine if you had a way better deal than what we're ever offering. And to try to shorten it up a little, going forward on this for all of our schemes, which is anything, it's not a bad word, it's just when you have an idea of making money, it's what it is. We tend to have these really high in the sky. Everything's gonna be worth a bazillion dollars 20 years from now. Who gives a shit what it's worth now? I give, and it's like the armory, you go back on the costs and you look at it, everything you know or think you know about the armory is complete crap. Unless you were following, this war was fought several years ago, and we won it decisively with the Armory Foundation. Mike, your time's up. Thank you. I am done. Sally Carson. Sally Carson, 320 Lincoln Ave. Three minutes, Sally. Thank you. Hello, my name is Sally Carson. I'm a part of the Armory Project Committee. I'm a four-year resident of the city and an 11-year resident of Wisconsin, but I am not a native of Sheboygan. In fact, I've never even set foot in the Armory. Nevertheless, I can see that the Armory is something that's a large part of the community, and we can envision it being a large part of the community again. Sheboygan has the potential to be a destination instead of a place to pass through on the way to somewhere else. I'm interested mainly in the aspects of what the Armory could mean for small businesses. There are wonderful shop locations up and down 8th Street and other locations around the city, but rent can be high for someone who wants to start a small business and see if they can build into a larger space without having to take out an exorbitant loan. The business incubators give people a chance to start in a manageable space and build a following to be able to grow and contribute to our city and its economic landscape. The Armory Project has the potential to house a mix of business ideas, family activities, and large events that has the chance to become more than just a community building. Let's get people to stay here, spend money here instead of traveling and spending money in other cities. You've seen what our committee can get done in a short amount of time. Please consider that none of us have taken the prospect of what is to come lightly. We all understand it will take work, but it's work that we believe in. Once this building is gone, we'll never get the opportunity it presents back. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Thank you. Jarrett Straughn. Can you state your name and address for us please? My name is Jarrett Straughn and my address is 2203 North 6th Street here in the city. Thank you, you'll have three minutes. It's going to be a fast three, isn't it, Merith? I'm glad I was here for the other speakers. Many of the things that I had so carefully crafted into what would have been my three minutes this afternoon has been addressed some measure. I'm a newcomer to Sheboygan. I've been here 23 years. I came here to be close to my in-law family. My mother-in-law's family were the Cupsils, my father-in-law's family were the Stollwolves. I came here to be close to my in-law family, which should explain something about how silly it can be for an older fellow who wants to raise children in our nice town. We moved here to be close to our in-law family. You understand that? I love this town. I love this town. I came here from a place called Beloit. Any of you that read The New York Times regularly know that the Hendricks family has turned that into utter mecca for refurnishing, refurbishing, reconstruction for renovation, for historical survival, if you will, for some important businesses. In our case, we have two buildings left in this town that might merit that kind of attention. One is the courthouse. And the other one, some people in this room would like to tear down. It might be convenient, sir, to take it down, but let me tell you, it'd be a very foolish error. I'm sorry, I'm not running for anything, and my livelihood does not depend on the people in this room carrying one way or another about what I have to say. I'm a veteran, I'm 74 years old. I raised five people in this town with my wife, and that armory needs to be the anchor. And it can only be done with one of the proposals. I know that you're entertaining one from a company known as Scott Carson. I understand they're actually the leading contenders. I suggest that you go online and try to find a single project that Scott Carson has ever completed. Take a look, and then suggest to me as a taxpayer that you wanna blow 500,000 to destroy a good building and then give them the rights to an acre of land. Uh-uh, big mistake. Mr. Lewandowski, wake up. We need to have at least another six to 12 months to look at legitimate proposals. I suggest to you that Scott Carson's is not legitimate. Here's a legitimate proposal, and with this I quit. You see this? It actually was the most detailed of all the plans that the city received, correct, yes? And it may not be with us after tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you. Leslie Kohler. Hi Leslie, can you state your name and address for us please? Leslie Kohler, 2311, County trunk Y in the township. You'll have three minutes please. Thank you. I like Jarrett, love the city. I don't think anybody think I was a newcomer. I'm from sixth generation, but anyway, I am not for or against any of the proposals. What I do want to state is that the armory is a huge problem. I have wonderful memories of going to concerts there, seeing Jesus Christ superstar, all that. It was part of my youth as well. But the fact of the matter is that building has major issues, and it will be a great expense to renovate it, to restore it. So they're gonna do venues there. They're gonna use that as another venue in town. Well, there was a great deal of community support behind renovating the Sheboygan theater. And that had a lot of financial problems. And it's only been more recently that it is actually running in the black. And for them to have to compete with another venue and to maintain what they are doing, they do have a great deal of community support, or they wouldn't be in the black. And then I think the third thing I need to say is, whatever happens down there, we need to really realize that our waterfront really is a great asset. And whatever happens down there really, really needs to be a plus for this city, okay? And this has been 20 years, and that building is falling apart, and it is a huge problem. And we can love what our past is, but that sometimes saving the past isn't the thing that makes sense. Thank you. Thank you. Jennifer Lurkey, I apologize if I got your name wrong. Please state your name and address for us, please. Jennifer Lurkey, 111 Highland Drive, Glen Bula. Thank you, three minutes. I'm curious about just how much research the RFP reviewers did in evaluating the recommended proposal. A search of the respondents website shows just three commercial scale multifamily projects spanning the last year and a half. Searches of recent newspaper articles state that the land has not actually been purchased for any of those projects, nor has a shovel entered the ground, yet the respondent claims they'll be under construction here in Sheboygan in the next seven to eight months. The largest of the three projects on that website is projected at 9.7 million, yet the RFP reviewers were confident that the respondent could pull off a $26 million project here in Sheboygan. In addition, a simple circuit cord access search of the principal was equally enlightening. Check it out for yourself. I don't see where the benefit to the city is in the recommended proposal. The respondent offered to pay half a million for the site, but the city will spend close to half a million on demolition, which is net zero for the city. In addition, the respondent requested $4 million in TIF, which will put the city $4 million in the hole and take 18 years to pay back. Speaking of TIF, I was told in a November 2017 meeting with the mayor, the city administrator, the director of planning, and the director of public works who comprised the bulk of the very biased RFP reviewers that no TIF would be available for any of the respondents to the RFP. I feel like I was blatantly misled and lied to. In addition, the recommended project offers no jobs, no sales tax, no room tax. This recommendation doesn't add up. I beg the committee to reconsider the RFP reviewers' recommendation. If you're still compelled to proceed with their recommendation, please put some necessary precautions in place in the developer's agreement, requiring plan commission, architectural review board, redevelopment authority if applicable, and building plan review and approvals, plus building permits and closing on the financing, actual closing on the financing before demolition of the armory. This was perhaps the least experienced proposal the city received, and it could still easily fall through. I found the RFP review of our proposal. I am involved with the Armory Community Project to be accidentally misread or blatantly misled. I'm not sure which at this point. Overall, we found the published RFP review to be an untruthful representation of our proposal, which would generate $90,000 annually in property taxes, not the 55,000 cited, within 12 to 18 months, plus sales tax, room tax, associated visitor spending, as well as personal property tax for the tenants in the building. You know, our city didn't have a prayer of another nonprofit project that I was involved with succeeding more than a decade ago back in 2006, and they cited, who's gonna run it? How are they gonna be able to maintain it? What happens when we inherit a big mess when they fail? You know what that project was? That project was Bookworm Gardens, and it hosted 60,000 visitors in 2016, and look what a wonderful addition that has been to our community. Finally, I leave you with one last request. There's only one armory, but there are plenty of other developable sites downtown near the river and lakefront, heck, on the river and lakefront that are more desirable than the site, many of which were identified in a 2017 report by the Schwoing County Economic Development Corp. We have four multifamily developers, including Gorman, and a boutique hotel developer that expressed an interest in our community. Why are we not going for the gold? Ma'am, your time is up. And Negotiate. Oh, one more. One more. Tracy Kaderabek? Tracy, could you state your name and address for us, please? We'll do. Sure. Tracy Kaderabek, 16317 Dairyland Drive, Cleveland. Thank you. You'll have three minutes. Thanks. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Tracy Kaderabek. I am here representing TDK Group LLC, and I am honored to be able to address you today to discuss the future of the armory. So many before me today that have spoken have stolen a lot of my thunder, so I will try and get through what I can. My plan was one of two submitted with the purpose to repurpose the armory and use it as a venue for concerts, trade shows, receptions, and other public events. Our company has secured $750,000 in funds from our lender as well as investing our own personal equity to see this project through to grand opening. Past projects have given us the experience we need to complete this project while being mindful of actual cost of repairs and improvements to the armory. We need to complete this project while being mindful of the actual cost. In my email to you earlier this past week, I pointed out a few examples of our resourcefulness in spending wisely. Our boatworks project in Manitowoc is a perfect example of how large spaces can be repaired and restored into usable space without spending millions to use the building for a new purpose. We simply will not blindly spend exorbitant amounts during this project and will be accounting for every dollar. It is our dollars going into the project and they need to be paid back. So we will be needing to spend them wisely for why spending is the basis of how all businesses are started and how they are run. The armory building itself is not as bad off as people believe it to be. We toured the armory this past summer. The roof leaks are due to a lack of caulk around roof drains and the basement flooding is in part from breaks in the sewer main. Many of the issues in the building are the result of lack of maintenance and how that affects many components of the building. The building is structurally sound. Our plan saves a historic building from the wrecking ball. While we are mindful of the need for market rate and affordable housing in Sheboygan, we fail to see how the costs associated with using this site for that outweigh the benefits of using the armory as an entertainment venue for Sheboygan. The venue is a draw to Sheboygan as it offers an entertainment option so many millennials are looking for in a community to call home, not to mention us old folks who wouldn't mind seeing a big band of the armory from time to time. The city is lacking in venues that have the ability to offer indoor concerts with standing room as well as the ability to provide a space for indoor boat and RV shows with the large door that the armory provides for. This building is an icon of Sheboygan's DNA. Tracy, your time's up. Sorry, thank you. Thank you. All right, very good. Some of the developers were speakers, but if other developers who have not spoken would stand up and introduce yourselves. Start over here. Thank you. Any other developers in the audience? Yes, Tracy. And we have Dane and Jennifer. Anyone else? Okay, very good. We'll get moving then and I would ask for an approval of the minutes of our October 9th, 2017 meeting. So moved. Second. Any discussion? Very none. All in favor, state aye. Aye. Any opposed? Oh, thank you, Marcus. We're going to start our discussion on items 3.1 and 3.2, which will basically be discussed together. I'd like to have Bernie Romer and Roberta Felicki Pineski. Bernie is the purchasing agent for the city. Roberta is a citizen member of the Armory Review Task Group. If you want to come forward and unfortunately our PowerPoint is not quite up to speed. So you'll just have to be very vibrant in your descriptions and so forth to help us along. Good evening. Then ask to provide a little background on where the Armory has been in the past 12, 12 years or so. And Bernie, if I can interrupt, this is the, I think all the alders have a copy of this and some of the audience do. The Armory closed to public events back in 2005. That was a result of not only a low usage by groups, but also it recognized the maintenance costs associated with keeping the Armory alive and open. 2010, Spaceport came to the city and asked to occupy the space for the Spaceport Museum. 2012, late 2012, Spaceport vacated and went down to the South Pier. At that point in time, the city essentially winterized the Armory, drained down the heating systems, drained down the water, shut off the boilers and made it into kind of a cold storage type thing. It's quite costly to heat even above freezing. 2014, we were directed to issue a request for proposals for the reuse or redevelopment of the Armory as a building. Part of that was a nationwide search for developers. Over 1,000 contacts were made, two proposals were received. The SEAS Group, Sailing Education Association of Sheboygan, proposed to demolish the building and develop apartments and a corporate headquarters site. An Oshkosh developer proposed market rate housing for the entire site. Common Council in 2014 directed that we move forward with the SEAS proposal. The Armory at that point in time was prepared for demolition. The all interior furnishings and fixtures were sold. Letting as best as testing was completed. The Historic Preservation Commission enacted a 90-day hold at that time to seek out other interested parties to redevelop the building. We showed the property to two interested parties who ultimately came to the conclusion that the cost was too much to rehabilitate the building. During that 90-day hold, the SEAS Group also withdrew their application because of a purchase of a property that came available on South A Street just north of the Street Bridge. And after going back to the Oshkosh developer who proposed apartments for the entire site, he expressed no interest in moving forward either. 2016, of course, the Milwaukee Bucks Dealey proposal came to the forefront. And as we know, they chose Oshkosh over Sheboygan. During the last couple of years, there's been little or no interest expressed in the building. And we have seen some additional deterioration of the building. May of 17, I was directed to seek demolition bids and also issue a companion request for proposals for redevelopment of the site following demolition of the building. September 17, Common Council awarded demolition bids to convenient construction in the amount of 355,573.78, which included abatement of asbestos and lead-based paint. And of course, in November of 2017, Historic Preservation Commission imposed second 90-day hold on demolition. At this point, I'll turn it over to Ms. Roberta Fulicki-Pineski. Good evening. My name is Roberta Fulicki-Pineski and I am here to speak on behalf of the committee that reviewed this. And the reason I got the short straw is that the RFP are my initials. Roberta Fulicki-Pineski just thought I'd share that. Okay, all right, we received on January 3rd, a pack, well, shortly after January 3rd, this pack of information, six proposals. And with these six proposals, we each received everybody on the committee, each received one sheet of paper with all of the criteria, which I will go through with you shortly. But we each received six proposals and we each received these and we're instructed to put our comments here, fill this out and come prepared for our first meeting. We did that. Then when we got to the first meeting, we each received this matrix, which further clarified which proposals and which criteria were there. And you notice there are blanks at the bottom of this. So the blanks at the bottom were places where each of the individuals on that committee could score right there additional comments. The committee met fully twice. We met the first time to review the proposals at that point when we reviewed the proposals, we looked at the top two by consensus, by scoring, we looked at the top two. We actually called in the city attorney and said, what can we do and what can't we do? And it was permissible to call in the top two for questions regarding only what they had in the proposals. So that's what we did. The committee then met for the second time and we had by phone one developer and by presence the second developer. And the group met probably for two and a half hours and further inquired about the proposals. At that point, we then proceeded with our recommendation. But I'd like to go back to the criteria because here's the criteria that was on that first sheet of paper plus the criteria on the matrix. And this was council approved criteria for the RFP. The proposal includes a use or a variety of uses which complements downtown Sheboygan. The proposal maximizes taxable value to the city. The proposal offers a reasonable purchase price slash lease rate to the city. The proposer offers financial strength and can implement and construct quickly. And the high quality design personnel and contractors are available to complete the project. That was the criteria we worked with and that was the criteria that this body approved for the RFP. So what I will do now is go through each of the, and the alders have this in front of them, each of the proposals and I will give you the strengths and the weaknesses that we summarized as a group. TDK Group, their strengths was they provided a variety of uses and it would be privately owned. They would pay property tax. We didn't know the amount, but we knew they would be paying property tax. Weaknesses, the proposer would purchase the building for $10 and require an unknown amount of TID financing incentives. They lacked data, the proposal, lacked data about the anticipated assessed property value. They had very limited information on renovation costs. No financial projections on construction and operations were provided. And the proposer had no facility redevelopment or facility operating experience for a facility of this kind. The next proposal is the Armory Community Project proposal. And this project suggested renovation of the current building into a state of the art community center and a 40 multifamily new housing unit immediately behind. So not only did they want to preserve the Armory, what is now the parking lot, would be the 40 unit housing unit. The committee determined that the strengths of this project was that it did indeed provide a variety of uses. The separate housing component, 40 market rate apartments, had an estimated value of 6.6 million, which would return 55,000 in tax to the city. And the strength was, if the proposal could not financially work, they would re-deed the property back to the city on 1231.18 if the funding wasn't acquired. That was kind of a double-edged sword. That's a strength, it's also a weakness. If it comes back on the 18, 1231.18, the whole process that started in 2014 starts again. The weaknesses, property is purchased for a dollar. It requires city funding allocated for the demolition to be put into escrow. No funding is in place, the budget was 7.7 million. To be owned by a yet to be created not for profit entity. So there is a name, but there is not a legal entity, that is proposing this, that is yet to be created. Since the not for profit has yet to be created, there was no facility redevelopment or facility, facility operating experience within that entity. And this was brought up in conversation. There is no evidence that there is market demand to be able to support the proposed type of entertainment use that this says. The next proposal, are you with me? The next proposal was true vine development. And this proposal provided for 155 market rate apartments in two phases. The strengths of this proposal, the estimated property assessed value of 35.5 million, and that was the highest. 35.5 million could return 300,000 to taxes to the city. And the proposal had a quality design. The weaknesses were that the proposer would purchase the property for a dollar and require incremental financing of 3.1 million. The second weakness was that the property would be developed in two phases. Phase one in 2019 and phase two in 2020. The weaknesses would delay the demolition of the armory to coincide with phase two, which likely would require a reissuing of the contract for the demolition. And the review group was concerned with two phases, two phased approaches that the developer perhaps would not complete the second phase of the development. The next proposal was T-Wall Enterprises. And this had a project of 198 units of market rate apartments. Strengths of this proposal included an estimated property assessed value of 31.8 million with 269,000 returning to the city in taxes. The proposed use does complement the downtown Sheboygan process. The weaknesses are that the purchase property, they would purchase the property for a dollar and would require all of the increment from the project, which would total 11 million dollars. The project would be constructed in three phases, not one, not two, but three. And there were no renderings provided to determine the design of that project. The next one was Catelas Group. And when I got my pack of data, all of that, I immediately opened it and just looked at the pictures on the cover of each one. And this was a surprise to me because this projects for a hotel. Proposal provides for an $18.6 million $125 room lakefront hotel and conference center. The strengths, the project would be completed in one phase. The proposer would cover the cost of the parking structure which was included with the project. The pro forma included the cost of demolition which was the savings to the city of $355,000. It would have an $18.6 million assessed value returning $157,000 in taxes to the city. The weakness, they would purchase the property for $100, they perhaps would require incremental funding. The amount was unknown. The weaknesses was they weren't sure of the vitality of the project with up to three new hotels which are entering our hotel market in the next 18 months. And it was unknown whether the hotel would be a franchise hotel or it would be independently owned otherwise known as a boutique hotel. I might come back to that shortly. Okay, the next one, and if you have what I have, this is out of order so we'll come back to that one. Okay, the next is Scott Crawford, Inc. This proposal provides for 122 units of mixed use housing. Approximately 48 units of this is what we call affordable housing. 74 units are market rate housing and that market rate housing unit also includes townhouse rental homes of two and three bedroom. The proposal provides for approximately 8,600 square feet of commercial space on the first floor. The strength of the Crawford report including purchasing the property for a half a million, $500,000. 26 million of assessed value returning 220,000 to the city and taxes. And it would be constructed in one phase. There was substantial developer equity in the pro forma of approximately $7.2 million. The financial commitment for mortgage amounts was provided. The project would start construction in the fall of 2018 and it would be completed in the spring of 2020. The weakness is that it would require approximately $4 million in incremental financing. That would be in the form of a tax rebate. It wouldn't be upfront cash. So next page and it is in the proper order. The next page is provided by this page. It looks like this folks. That page was provided to us by the developer when we had both developers in on the second meeting. So according to an article in the Sheboygan press, the vacancy rate of Sheboygan has been as low as 0.4% below the statewide average of 3.96% and the national average of 4.2%. 57% of survey respondents earned over $50,000 in yearly salary. 10% of the residents made over 150,000 a year. 82% of the respondents wanted two or three bedroom units in a downtown development. The next page I have looks like this. Again, based on the analysis, the structures in the Crawford report has a seven story multifamily unit of 62 apartments, 12 one bedroom, 28 two bedroom, 22 three bedroom. In the five story unit, five story building, there are 48 apartments, 30 are one bedroom, 18 are two bedroom and there are a series of town homes planned for the north part of the property which faces the apartments if you have a visual, faces the apartments with the red brick, 12 units and those are all three bedroom town homes. Then, let's see, maybe I just had an extra page folks. Nope, this was part of the analysis. Part of this developer has worked a couple of times, has been through the city and has been working with the Shboyton County Economic Development Corporation but additional database for his proposal was that there are job over 280 job openings in this county that pay over $50,000 a year. Average household income here is 62,255, household net worth average 414,000, unemployment rate 2.9% in our county population of 115. So, what we did was take the data. We had our developer from, he was in North Carolina and he sat with us on the phone and I, for one, I will only speak for myself but we were working with him, we were asking him specific questions and I believe it was Mayor Van Der Stee who was in the room who said, are you aware of the fact that we were pressing for? Is this going to be a franchise or is this going to be a boutique hotel? And Mayor Van Der Stee said, are you aware of that? These three hotels are going in and you could hear his voice go, oh, it was apparent that he was not aware and he very specifically said, I wasn't aware of that, I have to rethink because that determined that that perhaps would not be viable for him to come in and develop. So, the next group we had was Scott Crawford. He arrived with his, there would be proposed, would be an on-site manager for the apartments, brought his architect and we said, are you aware of how close this is to the lake and the river and he said, yeah, I am, brought the construction manager and himself who spoke about finances. So in the end, the committee recommended Scott Crawford Inc. for your consideration. Based upon the fact that the proposal mixes use of development with both affordable and market rate housing and earlier you heard some numbers, the rents for this would be between $715 and $850 a month for the affordable units and the committee paused and said, everybody should be able to live near the lake. Proposals, first floor commercial space and I envisioned, and I don't think I've told anybody this, but I envisioned a restaurant called the Armory Bar and Restaurant. And there was a strong financial plan in place. There was a strong management team. It would be completed in one phase. There was the $7.2 million in substantial developer equity and the developer had very specifically done research on the need for additional units. The timing for the development is right and currently the market is stable. I come from a financial background and I know what even a quarter of a percent of an interest rate means to developers and it's significant. So based upon all of those, all of those thoughts and observations, we have come to you with the recommendation that we be able to you would empower the city to begin discussion and a development contract with Scott Crawford. Before we start any discussion for our con, does anyone have questions for either Bernie or Bert? Alder Schneider. Yes, I was just curious. How did the scores end up? As I see you had a scoring process. Do you know what those scores were for each of them? I don't have that. I don't know who does. Does anyone in the room have them? I have mine. Any other questions? Ken, can we get them? They were not collected. The recommendation of the task force was unanimous of those participating to recommend Scott Crawford. Sir, sir, we're really not opening the floor at this point, thank you. Are there any questions of Bert and Bernie? I feel like this is a show. I'm sorry, the Bert and Bernie show of Bernie or Bert before we enter into discussion. Okay, thank you very much, appreciate it. Likely other questions will come up, so don't leave. Is there any discussion on either 3.1 or 3.2? Alder Hoshu? Yeah, just raise your hand, that'll work tonight. Thank you very much. I have some major concerns. In 2014, the Sheboygan Economic Development Corporation did a study of all the living arrangements in the city of Sheboygan. At that time, they took a group of different apartments, called them, did two calls. One of the properties that I managed was involved in that. And I think when I'm talking about property management, I can speak with some authority, as I've done it for 35 years of my life. They did a study to see how many apartments needed in Sheboygan. But they did this study in the middle of winter. Everybody's apartments are full in the middle of winter. I personally do not believe that we need more apartments above and beyond what we've just built. I think we're satisfying our area. What no one addresses, and I made the same statement when they came before us for each of these different housing departments, was retention. How do you plan on having retention of these people in these apartments? The city has to offer something. They have to offer entertainment. They have to offer something. Great restaurants, great shopping. I can tell you, not a lot of people are seeing that in Sheboygan. And so if there's anything that has anything to do with apartments, I just think that for some reason, they just keep piling these apartments that we need them so badly. And we just really don't. We have three brand new projects that are gonna adequately take care of our needs. You can rental rate of $1,200 a month. You can get a $215,000 home for that amount. And that includes your taxes. The rate that was studied that did need, and I will clearly say we need more one bedrooms, but we need it between four and six, maybe four and $700 a month. That's what the market's looking for. We're inundated in two-bedroom apartments. We have a lack of three-bedroom apartments. I am not in favor, and will not be voting in favor of anything that has anything to do with building more apartments. And I think that the study done in 2014 was slanted because it was done in winter, and I'm not the only property manager that said something to them about it. So that was done four years ago, and I just do not believe we need another bunch of apartments. We have more Section 8 WEDA and tax credit properties than we do conventional, and that's an attraction to people in other states that like our system better than their own. So they're coming in dwells to live in our subsidized and voucher programs. I just don't think we need it. But we do need, if someone comes to Sheboygan and says, you know what? I sure would like to build a brand new house for myself. There's no land. Now that we've annexed that land, that's off of Stahl Road, we're gonna be able to afford them an opportunity to build houses. There's gonna be some subdivisions off of South 12th Street, where people can build a home if they'd like to, where we've never had that opportunity. But you better look at the fact that if you're gonna build all these apartments, you better have something in the city to retain them here. Because most people, they think, oh, cutie, they're making these big salaries. They're not. It's like 35,000 a year. So I don't know where they come up with these numbers. If this was all, why was a point system instillated? If no one can even tell us what the point system answers were. What was the point of doing a point system? And I think we should have had pros and cons for, did we get pros and cons for every single one of these, we had strengths and weaknesses. I would like to see the armory repurposed. So I won't be in voting in favor of anything that has to do with building yet more apartments. Alder-Truster. I have gone through all the proposals. And I've gotta tell ya, they all seem to have quite a bit of merit. But I am not sitting in this chair right now because I think a proposal has merit. I'm sitting in this chair right now because I have been voted in by the people. And by golly, my phone hasn't stopped and it's been a lot worse since the mayor was on the radio. The people of Sheboygan are passionate about their armory. They do not want the armory torn down and they want that armory at any cost. They feel and I'm just relaying the message. What people have been telling me is that the city of Sheboygan has taken so much away from them and saying that we need this, the city needs to grow in the city, the city, the city. But what about the people that have lived here that have supported this city that lived here all their lives? There's an awful lot of them that have history and they want their armory. We're not, the city of Sheboygan is willing to stick their hands in the pockets of the citizens of Sheboygan for $11 million to refurbish City Hall. But they're not willing to give the people who are paying that $11 million the armory that they want. They want that armory and they're passionate about it. They don't like the idea that we've taken away D-Land Park and given us a marina, which 90% of the people of Sheboygan don't use because we can't afford it. They don't like the idea that we're taking away the armory. There's no place to shop here in town. We go out of town to shop. We love walking down the street of Cedarburg and all the little shops. The city of Sheboygan has killed the city, the downtown of Sheboygan. We've got a library where an anchor store should be. Now we have an apartment building where another huge store could be. There's nothing to draw small shops downtown because nobody's downtown. Give us the armory and give us a place where we can feel that this is home and keep the people here and the people downtown. A while back somebody in this council chamber said that the population of Sheboygan has stayed the same for the last 20 years. Well, what they haven't said was that the population of the town and the surrounding areas has grown because people are fed up. There's nothing here to keep the people here. Give them something to keep them here. I will not vote in favor of apartments on the armory site. Well, they're Lewandowski. Yes. Just past summer we were showing the results of a citizen survey. And most of the comments that I saw were save the armory. We don't need any more apartments. So I'm going to vote against apartments also. And for many years the armory was basically a community center. We don't have a community center now. And if we build apartments down there, we certainly won't have one then. And the apartments are not going to be able to be used by the people of Sheboygan only by a certain few that can afford to rent them. So I'm going to vote against any apartments. Any other discussion, Alder Sorenson? For me this discussion is not really about whether or not we need more apartments. I think for me this is really about the armory. I think that I was part of the last generation that got to really experience the armory before it was kind of shut off from the public. I do have a few questions about some of the proposals. And I don't know, I'll ask the chairwoman if it's all right if I can call up Dane Schaefer to just ask some questions relating to his proposal. That's fine. And I just kind of want to set up why I'm asking some of these questions. So I think being one of the newer members on the council, I had to do a little research about the history of the armory and the city and what we wanted to do with it. Like any good council member I did, my research poking around a little bit. I think 2014 when the debate was around whether or not we should keep the heat on and what to do with the armory. A lot of the discussion was based around well we would keep the armory but we don't have any tangible plans or ideas to keep the armory. And I think right now, I think we have a group that's dedicated and put together a very thought out plan to keep and preserve the armory. Now with that, there's still a lot of money and funding that has to be part of it as well. So Dane, I guess a few questions for you and your group. I'm looking at your sources of revenue. And I think you guys rely heavily on some tax credits. Specifically the state historical tax credit. Now right now in General Chai Min or Mayor Van Der Sen Chai Min, if I'm wrong with any of these numbers relating to the state historical tax credit or the federal historical tax credit for that member. But right now isn't the state historical tax credit capped at $500,000? Right, oh, sorry. But the state legislature is they're doing something right now to remove that cap. Jennifer would be a lot better at answering these questions. Okay, yeah, I don't know who to answer. Again, Jennifer Lurkey, legacy architecture. I'm a historic tax credit consultant. It's what I do for a living. That sounds fun. I'm also a member of the Wisconsin Historic Tax Credit Coalition. We have our own lobbyist in Madison and I participate in bi-weekly phone calls on the status of what's going on with our state historic tax credit right now. That cap does not kick in until July 1st of 18. So currently it is uncapped. There is legislation that was approved through Joint Finance Committee last week to put a, I don't know if you wanna call it a patch on the program, but basically there's a $500,000 cap that is supposed to go into a fact July 1st. The cap would be raised to $3.5 million with this legislation that has just passed through Joint Finance Committee. They could be voting on it as early as this week. And it's got bipartisan support. It's widely cosponsored by both sides of the aisle. We are fully expecting it to pass. Meetings with Governor Walker's chief of staff said he will not veto it. And so we have every reason to believe that it's gonna be passing soon. But the cap does not kick in until July 1st. And another question regarding naming rights, stage naming rights. You guys have a lot of naming rights in here also for funding. Has there been any discussion or any potential sponsorships for naming rights? Anyone come forward and give suggestions? I'm looking for just some sort of commitment from unyieldside groups that have put that forward. Definitely. This was a double-edged sword for us. And we had a lot of discussion after the proposal was submitted on January 3rd. Do we move forward and get some soft commitments or not? Ultimately, our group decided to not move forward until we had any indication from the city whatsoever that they were gonna take our proposal seriously. Personally, I was anticipating maybe a phone call or an email a week after the proposal was submitted, saying, hey, we suggest you get some soft commitments. And if you can bring them in, let's talk. But we never received any kind of communication like that. So, and obviously when you're approaching a project like this, you get one shot to talk to these donors. We didn't wanna do that without having any kind of indication from the city that we had a prayer. I guess, sorry, kind of to expand what she started touching there was, we had three months to do this and we put together what you guys have all seen now in three months. The last thing that we wanted to do was be unprepared when we enter somebody's office to ask them for millions of dollars to make something like this happen. And we wanted to put together the best, I guess product, project possible for you guys. So we spent the time on that. We think that if you look at the history of Sheboygan in terms of the Weil Center and the YMCA, that finding with city support when there's not city employees and elected officials in the paper kind of beaten up on what you're trying to do and when there's support behind it, that this kind of money isn't, it's not even crazy. I think both the YMCA and the Weil Center were more, were larger projects than this. The Weil Center was 10 million, the YMCA was 7.8 or 8. So about the same. So I don't think that, I'm not saying that I can't guarantee anything here if I could. I think that we'd be in a completely different meeting but I think that we've shown that this community is willing to step up to make these types of projects happen when they're meaningful. And to hit on that tax credit a little bit too because it's been questioned about our ability to pull the historic tax credits in the paper and also some phone calls and other comments I've received. This is what I do for a living. Our firm in the last four years has secured $15.5 million in historic tax credits in communities all over the state, from Green Bay to Kokona to Plymouth, our neighbor, to Waukesha, just in the last four years on seven, eight projects. It's what we do. It's not a competitive, the historic tax credits are not competitively let out. If the building is a historic building, which it is, it qualifies, it's 20% of the construction costs. We have automatically a million dollars coming in for federal, a million dollars coming in for state, which means we need to raise another 4.1, sorry, for the construction costs alone. Ms. Lurke, I just had a follow-up point because when we spoke, you basically guaranteed. Correct. So there is no question. There is no question whatsoever. I've been in talks with the Wisconsin Historical Society about this building for the last three years I've had members of the Wisconsin Historical Society in the building. There's no question about its eligibility. It's a matter of filling out the paperwork. Now, one of the things that we would need to do is to start filling out that paperwork to secure it as a letter from the city saying they are aware that we have filed the paperwork. Another question that I have. Oh, go ahead. I got a few questions. So I'm gonna hold the floor for a little bit. Another, I was actually very intrigued with the proposal too about the apartment, the apartment building on that site. Do you feel like that would interfere anyway with the Armory's operation at all? Or I'm just kind of thinking, what was the... No, none whatsoever. I reached out to a handful of developers to see who wanted to partner with us. In fact, the only reason why T-Wall knew about this proposal and submitted a proposal was because I met with them to talk to them about partnering with us. Gorman, we were really hoping to partner with Gorman. We feel like Gorman was the most experienced apartment multifamily developer that was included in the six. There got three projects here in Sheboygan already. They've done work all over the country. Hands down, Slam Dunk, I think the most experienced developer. They were actually attracted to partnering with us because of the potential of the community center and the Armory. That was actually a selling point for them. They wanted to be next door to that. They wanted to, some of the ideas we've been talking about, they liked that. They thought it would be an amenity to their tenants and it would actually make their tenants wanna live next to that building. Do you feel like having that apartment building on that property, that if we were parking at all? We did a full parking study that was in, I forget if we showed the entire parking study in the report or not. Excuse me, I'm just. Oh yeah, it's under the predicted vulnerabilities on page five. So we looked at a two black radius around the site. We found there's 683 stalls off site that are either publicly owned by the county or by the city. Most zoning regulations require three, or sorry, one parking space per three or per four visitors to a venue such as this. And that would more than cover our expected peak attendees at a venue like this. And we need to keep in mind, there's only ever been, we looked at that gravel parking lot. There's about 80 parking spaces there. There's only ever been in the history of that building, 80 parking spaces on site ever. And we were planning on putting 41 back onto the site. Also the peak of the building in its history has been about 3,500 attendees. We're only looking at 2,500 attendees. Kind of another follow up question with apartments. So Gorman, I know that they subsidize apartments at all. Would this be subsidized in any way? No, they wanted to do market rate for this. Oh yeah, on the actual apartments, are you saying like a tip? I mean, either way, it's no, no, no. Okay, I guess I wanted to add kind of. That would only drag the timeline out further. Jumping back a little bit, as she said, I don't believe that it would greatly affect our ability to do what we wanna do by adding an apartment. But I guess I want to point out that, in my opinion at least, it's not ideal. It's not what I want. It's what I think, it's a show of good faith that if your guys' goal and agenda with this property is to raise property taxes, let's do that. Let's work together, let's find a solution together that we can all be happy with. That's why I think that that's really there. Again, at the end of the day, if you guys believe that we need to raise those funds, have some more rooms down there, great, that option is there, we're going to have that ability to do it, and I don't think that it will affect our ability to operate there. And in fact, I think that it may be mutually beneficial in the sense that people that live there will have something right outside their door that attracts them, and we get more people coming in that live right there, so yeah, I guess. But you believe you could get the project done without the apartments, correct? Unrelated to one another. Yeah, in terms of finances or whatever, it's unrelated. Again, this was just, because kind of like I said earlier in my three minutes, I want to work with the city. I want to come to a solution that makes the citizens happy and helps you guys reach your goals, and that's kind of what we're trying to do here, was show that this isn't just, well, we don't care what you think, keep this building by any means, and screw all of your plans, it was, let's find a solution, let's work on this, let's talk about it. That's all the questions I had for you guys, but I do have more questions for Dave Bebel. Dave, if you could come on down. My question's more for you, Dave, I think in kind of setting up this, is I think one of my concerns is, like Roberto was talking about before, the market for something like this. Can you kind of give a background about the usage for the armory? What would that look like? Have there been any requests since 2005 for something like the armory at all, or any background information would be helpful? Sure. That's kind of an open end question, but I'll try to be as direct to that question as possible. I've been with the city and the Department of Public Works for 30 years. We managed the armory, we rented that armory as part of our office. Starting, I have figures from 98 on it, I tried to go back and try to dig out some more information, but starting in 1998, we started having these debates about the armory. We had two full-time caretakers there, we were keeping care of the building, we were basically subsidizing the facility to the community by offering very reasonable rates for rental. In 1998, we had 57 events that year, and out of that, we generated revenue from the rent, and the revenue was 23,500 roughly. In 1999, it went down to 42 events that year, seemed for 2000, but then in 2001, it went to 37 events. 2002, it went to 29 events. 2003, 26 events, 2004, and then 2005, there was only 21 events for the entire year that were booked at the armory. So that was really what was driving the discussion back in the day was it's a big facility, takes a lot of money to keep the lights and keep it heated, as well as maintained. During this time, other venues were starting to open. Blue Harbor was built in their convention center. The school district built the field houses, no longer was the high school basketball games. Other venues such as the Wild Center opened up for entertainment and theater. The armory, many of you recall, is basically a gymnasium with a stage at the end of it, and in fact, the upper areas of the balcony, when we would have stage events, you'd have a quarter of it couldn't be rented out for seats, basically couldn't sell seats because you had no view of the stage from that end. So it was back, it was built, it served a great purpose. It was maximized in terms of its limitations, but over time venues started replacing a lot of those types of events. So that's kind of the history.