Common Council - Regular Meeting

Okay, it is 6.08 and I will call the Committee of the Whole to order. Roll call for the Committee of the Whole. Is anybody on Zoom? Okay, we have members of the Committee of the Whole present with the exception of Alder Anderson and Alder Dunbar. So we'll move to our discussion action items tonight. We have one item, 26-0791, the redevelopment proposals for Madison School and Lakeview Park. That's notice for closed session, so the committee can review them initially. So we're going to move into closed session at this time. So notice is hereby given that the above governmental body may adjourn into a closed session during the meeting as authorized by section 19.851E, The Wisconsin statute authorizes the governmental body to convene in a closed session for the purpose of deliberating or negotiating the purchasing of public properties, the investing in public funds, or conducting other specified public business whenever competitive or bargaining reasons require a closed session. The specific subject matter that may be considered in a closed session is 26-0791, the redevelopment proposals for Madison School and Lakeview Park. The motion to convene in a closed session was made by Alderperson, Second by Beeman.

Council President said quits. Could I just make a point of order?

Yes, Mayor.

I'm getting looks from Adam. I think he maybe wanted developers to speak first. I'm sorry, I don't know.

yeah if it's okay i guess the thought was that the developers would present an open session and then you the council could at that time ask questions and then after that go into closed session to okay i may have missed that in your email to me so sorry about that i probably mistyped something uh no it'll be mine it's my fault so we will hold off on that motion for a moment and let the developers um give their presentations before we go into closed session so

Adam, I'll turn the floor over to you. Okay, again, my apologies if that was unclear. Hopefully the committee of the whole is comfortable with that approach. The intent was so that if there were any members of the public who were interested in this, that they would have the ability to at least hear the presentation from the developers as well. But ultimately, I'll give you a little bit of background. So as you know, the city acquired Madison School from the district, and the intent was to look for potential redevelopment partners on that property. To that end, the city has sent out a request for proposals. We sent it out to about 40 to 50 different development groups, and ultimately we received two that the internal review group felt were appropriate to bring forward to the Committee of the Whole for consideration. So the two development proposals are, one is from Mike Howe Builders in partnership with Vinton Construction. And I believe Mike will be going first on his presentation. And then the second is AmeriCon Construction. And their partnership group includes Three Amigos, which is more of the running arm of the company. But again, after Mike is done, they'll do their presentation. And I guess I'll let you run it as you see fit after that. Sounds good. Thank you, Adam.

Then we'll turn over to Mr. Howe.

Thank you for having me and looking at my proposal. I'm Mike Howe, Mike Howe Builders in Manitowoc. I know most of everybody in this room from working with you guys. I'll start with a little bit of background. First, Mike Howe Builders has been in business since 2004. We've been working in Manitowoc County. and we own east point rentals east point land development cobblestone hotel group we're a part of the strand adventures and the venue at union square the redevelopment and we've done quite a few different projects in the city in the community and i would like to think they've all been successful and we're moving forward i've been part of the a small group that the city hosts at Progress Lakeshore for talking about redevelopment and housing in town. And when I saw that we've been talking and I saw this property and I've been following the school district for a long time, so I started conversations with the school district well over a year ago to try to bring this project in and as I watched how the school was going I had talks with Lee tennis and everything to try to get to buy that at that time and then I came through and talked with Adam numerous times on how the what I thought would be a good project and product and after Adam and council had everything discussed, then they thought it'd be best out for proposal, which to me only makes sense on a project like that. So, um, I'm proposing, uh, you guys had like three different scopes in your proposal. I chose venting construction as my business partner. We're both locally known and work in this town and community with our employees. So, um, let me make sure I, which way do I point this? Thank you. So we're trying to create, uh, A lot of this has still got variables in it just because we're so new into it and we have to have discussions of everything that the council will want as well. But I came up with just the name Madison Bluffs at Lake Michigan. And the first picture is shown are the back half of the... The bluff is one kind of project. It's all one project. The front, this would be in the back, two family condos so we could get 12 lots and 24... condos in there we've been doing a lot of research uh... trying to figure out what's best with everything so uh... you know work work can you hear me okay so uh... vision and design we've been working on uh... trying to incorporate this using uh... our amenities in the community that we've worked on for the last years uh... and The preferred uses, I went with the first design that we had talked about with Adam, and that was the city's first choice in financial capacity. We're able to finance the project ourselves, so we're not asking for anything at this time. We do ask for a due diligence period in this. but we're not asking any money from the city at this time for anything. So unless we get into some unknowns that we got to discuss, I kind of talked about our experience in that. The big economic benefit to me is it's 10 acres on the lake that has brings really no revenue in. And now I would assume the way I have it calced out that we would bring about $300,000 worth of tax revenue to the city once it's complete. So just we're looking for to try to build that bluff which extends down to Huron all the way over to I think St. Clair and try to use that and capture this using a lower profile style home to keep the roof lines. So we're not, I tried to look at every single house in the market over there to see where their houses, their windows were, where their looks are and try to space the lots out accordingly. I've, I've redesigned the lots about, ten different times the red is the where mcmason school is and then the other two parcels are what the city owns so i i've redrawn it up numerous different times trying to figure out what is the best use of the lot layout uh... right now number nine is the one i'm leaning towards because uh... we do believe there's some uh... so bad soil down by the yacht club corner so we have that uh... but number nine is the one that I'm going to work hard on the get to. Again, we want to use this to our benefit in the city with keeping everything clean, looking beautiful along there, incorporating good landscaping and benefits so that it really complements the bluff. The city took down a bunch of trees. We may have to remove a couple, and then we would be replanting into our – home designs and then obviously there's Some of the verified before the final plat, that's where we got to do our due diligence, like how much asbestos is in the school. We just got the report last week, but I wasn't able to put a number on that yet because I need to get a company through there. But we have done some test holes to find out what kind of soil we have. So that's why I moved the ponds where I did. Just another, some pictures and designs that I've been working on trying to find out what is the best examples that we think will fit. um and i'll probably end up staggering these a little bit just so that people can have the views and if your houses are behind to kind of see through the lots and everything as well this is a design i'm working on right now this would be my personal house that so you could see the design is how it's cut into the bluff low sloping roofs and then landscape professionally around it um Again, I've met with four different realtors to try to figure out what is the best use of and what people are looking for in the city of Manitowoc. And it's what we're showing. And we think I've got about five series inquiries to buy lots already. And I had another one this morning contact me. And it's moving along very well of where I'm at. I got my financial backing through United One. and then um we have uh vinton will self-finance their portion of it as well um i don't want to take up a lot of time but so these are some of the stuff that we want to make sure in order to get to market that it's everything works with the city we've tried to reevaluate and use it as a reuse so we only need 40 storm pond but we have to go through a lot of that get make sure everybody's content with the designs that i have put forward and the thought and the reason why the big thing i look at is if self-financing we might be somewhere around 2.5 million dollars into tearing down the school tearing everything out redeveloping so when constituents ask well why are you selling it for a dollar how did that happen well they don't understand it's minimum costing 75 000 a lot to put infrastructure in and when you look at manitowoc's uh... demographics and affordability it is very hard to sell a lot for seventy five thousand dollars so that's why the bluff has to be the ones that i sell and i try to break even almost on the back end on the lots so it's very challenging and being in a builder twenty group and i was state president wisconsin builder association i was president of mantua county builder association i've got i've done my homework and study on the cost and benefits to subdivisions we are ready to start right away. Um, we have the capacity to start demolition and construction right away and start the planning and that I know there's a definitely a timeline and a lot of due diligence stuff in this, but we can, we, we are ready to get started right away. Again, I kind of talked about the tax base on it. Again, it's private investment through Manitowoc, so it's working with locals here that have been in the community forever. So you guys both know me and Vinton, and we've studied the land, tested multiple plans. We've So we got everything that we think we need to put this package together and get started right away. Just looking for your support to support me. Again, I've done Reed Avenue, the Preserve at Lincoln Park subdivision. We planned on it taking about five years to build them houses out. We're over halfway, and we've still got two years to go to finish, to stay on task and on schedule for that. and um so far the stuff i've come with the city i've we've had a great private partner public relationship working together and i'd like to continue to move forward with that thank you guys okay thank you mike um and then our next uh presenter is from uh three amigos american and jake is that

That's not it.

Yeah.

There we go.

Well, thank you so much for having me. My name is Jake Buzzall with American Construction as well as Three Amigos. Oh, hold on one second here. Oh, there we go.

Oh, perfect. Okay, great.

All right, thank you again. My name is Jake Buzwell with AmeriCon Construction and Three Amigos. To my right is Nick, our PM. Many of you probably know PM from AmeriCon, as well as Rick Byers, one of the Three Amigos with me today. Appreciate the time and opportunity to be here in Manitowoc. As you probably saw in our RFP submission, we studied the site and we kind of came up with three concepts and evaluated the three as much as possible and tried to determine which would be our preferred concept. Most of what I'm going to highlight today in the PowerPoint will largely focus on our third concept. But in general, the central idea is to have a cohesive lakefront neighborhood and not a standalone apartment development or a standalone anything development. I guess the idea is to integrate the Madison site with the lakefront and the surrounding community. This first image is looking eastward towards the lake, and the roundabout there would be, if you were to extend Claire Avenue and put a roundabout in there, and then the overlook there, kind of where the playground is, would be created as well. Excellent. Okay, so the site is approximately eight acres, and we left, on how we designed it, we left alone the park land strip that it showed in the RFP along Maritime Drive. This is, as you all know, a rare infill opportunity less than one mile from downtown, and our idea was to create a variety of housing choices, including detached homes, townhomes, as well as professionally managed rental housing. The idea is to fit the neighborhood with, and I'll get into this a little bit later, lower scale housing to the west and the higher density towards the lakeside and the public connection that I had mentioned. So on the image on this slide, you can see the blue railing which goes out to the pier, the existing pier there looking across from Lighthouse Park. Okay, so the three concepts that were in our RFP. So the bottom concept one was designed by our award-winning architect firm we use, the Knothe and Bruce out of Madison area. They had configured the site for 28 detached homes, which we figured would account for about a $15 million increment, depending on city assessment teams and the type and quality of build. Our second concept was a total of 112 households, which was a combination of detached homes as well as some two-story townhomes and 173-unit multifamily, which would have come to approximately $21 million increment. And our preferred concept three would have a mix of for-sale housing, lots, as well as for sale townhomes and 273 units, as well as a developer-funded public corridor overlook. And we project that that would come to over a $30 million increment. So from concept one to concept three, we anticipate almost a 100% increase in increment. So here's the preferred concept layout. Again, it's easier to see probably in the RFP that I submitted than this screen. But in synopsis, it's 13 detached homes, 12 townhomes that are kind of the interior there as well as a amenity clubhouse and pool that would be for the townhomes as well as the 273 unit apartment buildings.

A few things to look at when you see this that are important for consideration is that the large massing of the buildings that are against maritime drive look massive and planned, but in reality, they're not any taller than any of the adjacent houses. it's important that we blend into the neighborhood. So looking at, I think that's the original Lawndale subdivision of blending single family homes along the perimeter, but then giving certainly more density along the lake, along with not incriminating on anybody else's view that any higher than what would have been built by code or a single family home.

Yep, that's correct. You got ahead of me a little bit here, so no worries. This next slide kind of goes over that a little bit. So that building on the right there, two stories, so that's towards the west and then going towards the lake, it steps down another story. So you have three stories towards the lake and two pathways. towards the residential subdivision not exceeding the existing 35 foot roofline height of the surrounding neighborhood. A little bit about us, and with the RFP, I hope you all saw that, and I had a more detailed developer track record. These are just three of the projects we put on here. We've been around since 1980 in Wisconsin developing for many, many years. The first one on the left there is a Red Earth project in Oshkosh. long-term project that we got approved a few years ago, and we're starting our second phase on that. The image there is of two 40-unit buildings, and you can't see it, but there's a clubhouse behind that building that's finished as well. And we just broke ground on another 82-unit building on that property just a few months ago. The middle building there is just south of us here in Sheboygan. We are finishing up with the first phase of that, which is 157 unit. One building is 157 units. That'll be finished up Q1 of next year, followed up by the second phase of that development will be another 58 unit building. And to the right would be a 66 unit brownfield site that we developed in the city of Baraboo, right on Baraboo River. And that we started in 2019 and finished in 2020. Currently, we have somewhere between 1,300 to 1,400 units that we own and manage throughout the state of Wisconsin, over 350 million of assets under management. And yeah, we're proud of our team. We've built, we've kind of graduated and moved over to this side of the state over the last handful of years and are in the process of building out our team. We have property managers that live locally, well, not in Manitowoc. We have Nick that's a PM that lives here, but we do have property managers in Oshkosh as well as in Sheboygan. So it's kind of a next logical step for the growth of our team. And with the needs in Manitowoc, we're trying to hit all the marks that really kind of came of the housing study a few years ago. We kind of highlighted that in the RFP as well. And I guess from here, these are preliminary renderings that we submitted and conceptual in nature. So at this point, we're not firm on exact size scope. At this point, we are just looking for a partnership and to see where this goes, if selected, and then kind of gather more information and determine the best avenue to move forward. like the previous developer, there's gonna be some upfront due diligence, right? We need to make sure the soil's not contaminated. We need to make sure that the soil's compatible to build what we've proposed. So all those things would have to happen, but if everything goes in order, we would hope to break ground sometime next year. And I guess, is there anything you wanted to add or?

No, you've hit on it. A couple things that I would maybe consider is to, again, anybody standing up here doesn't know exactly what you want. You have what's in the RFP, but it's part of a process, right? You need to listen. If you look in our RFP, we do want to engage with you, want to engage with any constituents that may want to talk about what this should be. That'd be something to consider.

It isn't a one-size-fits-all.

Two, and this strikes me from my time here, is the downtown master plan was totally engaging in trying to live and work downtown. And while we've done some good work on that, and River Point's a great success of that, living downtown's hard. There's historic buildings that have infrastructural challenges Here you have an opportunity to take more than just single-family homes, a higher density within a mile of downtown, higher-end professional setting. You can get people much closer. So I just wanted to point out the synergy that occurred to me when there was the opportunity for that.

And one thing I didn't mention, so even with our preferred concept does include 13 lots that we would anticipate selling. Ideally, we would partner with a local developer who's experienced to develop those single-family lots. That's not really our forte, but we would ideally sell it in one transaction to somebody who does do that for a living, single-family development, and we would concentrate on more of the multifamily component of it.

Yeah, it's a small opportunity, but there's a lot more information in our feed to take a chance to read it.

Okay, thank you for your presentation. Thank you. Okay, I think now is the time we can go into closed session and discuss, so.

Again, unless you have any questions for the development team as a committee at the whole, but otherwise, yes, if you want.

I think we may have some questions once we discuss in close, but so I wouldn't keep them around here for the opportunity to bring them in if we need be. So I've already read the notice for closed session, and we did have a motion from Norell and a second from Beeman, if those are still standing. Okay. Then on Norell. And isn't that here? Schley?

Aye.

Reckleberg? Aye. Bry? Aye. Benzinger? Aye. Cummings?

Aye.

Beeman? Aye. Myself? Aye. Mayor? Aye. All right, we are in closed session. At this time, we don't have any action to take as a committee, but we instructed city staff Adam Tagan to meet with both developers to refine your proposals with some of the feedback that the council gave. So I'll let Adam communicate that to you when he meets with you. So thank you for your time and your presentations. Anything further from committee? If not, I would look for a motion to adjourn. We have a motion and a second. We are adjourned.