City Panel Revisits 4 Stories for Firehouse Plot, with No TIF Funds

Negotiations will continue toward finding a way to redevelop the city-owned former firehouse lot in the Village, but a new set of parameters emerged Monday after a closed session of the Community Development Authority.

After earlier rejecting a four-story mixed-use development plan in favor of three stories to satisfy the concerns of neighbors, a fourth story is now back on the table as an option – but only if the upper story is set back so that it is less visible to neighbors.

And after also indicating earlier that limited tax-incremental financing through the city was a possibility to help fill a gap in the project's finance plan, the authority now says no TIF funding should involved.

With little to no appetite shown by the Common Council for another round of TIF funding for private development, the panel sought a way for Phelan/WiRED, partners in the preferred plan, to make its own financing work.

There will certainly be some public funding in the project, the panel indicated, to help fill the city's own demand for 36 public parking spaces, but that is seen as a public responsibility rather than a form of assistance.

Phelan/WiRED had originally proposed a four-story building spanning two sites – the small former firehouse land and the corner property at Harmonee and Underwood avenues, owned and occupied by Linda Craites and her business, Cody and Co. salon.

The project preliminary plan called for 6,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor and 36 apartment units above. The building would rise 52 feet above sidewalk grade in front and, because of a slope toward the street, about 47 feet above the back lot lines of neighbors on Church Street.

Those neighbors complained that was too high and imposing, and initially the Community Development Authority and district aldermen agreed, suggesting that a successful revised proposal would have to be limited to three stories.

Now, the feeling is that the financing gap in Phelan/WiRED's plan is too large if limited to three stories and the project couldn't go forward.

The principals in Phelan/WiRED have revised the project design and financing to reduce their finance gap below $1 million, but the number of units they can rent is critical to that equation. Building three stories would have limited the development to no more than 30 apartments.

The Development Authority voted unanimously to authorize a memorandum of understanding between the city and developers to work within the new parameters to negotiate a final plan proposal to return to the panel as soon as there is agreement.