Please attend the City Council meeting on: May 22nd, 2017

May 22nd is a Monday night from approximately 7pm to 11pm.

The staff report for Monday's City Council meeting to decide the fate of the Civic Center and the YWCA/KHP Hotel has been posted. The project was subsidized from the beginning in the sense that portions of the parkland/green space that was purchased by the voters in 1923 are being turned over to the hotel developers at no cost to them for their exclusive use.

This "Subsidy" is in addition to that, and is being discussed because the KHP hotel developer now asserts that project costs have increased to the point of unprofitability, and in order to continue, this additional subsidy is needed. Essentially, staff is suggesting the Council either

1.) Approve the additional Subsidy (50 years of free rent of the land, and 99 years of 136 free parking spaces) so that that massive hotel can be built as-is.

or

2.) Increase the additional subsidy (free land, free parking, + 20 years of no bed taxes) in order to build a smaller hotel project.

or

3.) Reject the subsidy and find a new solution. Assume that KHP 'walks away', start over to solicit new "bids."

There is also consideration of the City keeping and rehabbing the YWCA for use as city offices. Currently, the city rents commercial office space for several departments, and so could potentially save those rental payments by moving into the YWCA. But the staff report adds the construction of a new parking garage and a new separate office building. The analysis of the rehab+ additional structures suggests that is unaffordable (However, no analysis is done to explore just rehabbing the YWCA without building the additional office building and garage).