The City officials finally released the proposals submitted to build atop the as-yet unbuilt underground library lot parking garage. The movie title? “Conference Center of Dreams.” Mayor Hieftje will be played by Kevin Spacey (not Costner). The “Keep the plan secret from the public, then ‘out of the blue’ issue an RFP, all the while having secret discussions with one developer” school of downtown development originated in Sodom and Gomorrah. I’m just waiting for someone on Council to get turned into a pillar of salt after looking back longingly on the 2007-2009 budget. Those halcyon days when now-departed third Ward Council member Leigh Greden assured everyone on City Council that the city’s herd of tax cows supposedly generated enough property tax milk to build a $40 million dollar Temple to the Three Judicial deities (Easthope, Creal and Hines) and a $55 million dollar necropolis to house 800 cars.
After the library lot proposals came in, it was unclear whether anyone at City Hall would be able to remember the combination to the vault where the bid envelopes were stashed. It’s the same vault that houses ex-Council member Joan Lowenstein’s deleted emails from when she served on City Council, and the $100,000,000 Mayor Hieftje brags he has “saved” Ann Arbor over the decade he has been in office. It was also unclear anyone in City Attorney Stephen Postema’s office could locate the actual wording of the Freedom of Information Act that called for all of the bid information, once received by City officials and opened, to be released to the public. Why AnnArbor.com and a citizen had to “request” (file FOIA’s) to get the information released is yet another mystery to be investigated by Mulder and Scully. Once the PDF proposal summary was leaked to A2Politico and I blogged about it on November 20th, City officials put the PDF proposal summary online. Here’s a link to the city’s library lot proposal RFP page. Here’s a link to a November 23rd AnnArbor.com piece by Ryan Stanton with pictures of the six projects.
As expected, the conference center proposal from Valiant Partners closely follows the proposal that was secretly circulated and pitched by City Administrator Roger Fraser to City Council members in January 2009 at the City Council’s retreat. According to documents unearthed by local blogger, 2008 Fifth Ward City Council candidate and past County Commissioner, Vivienne Armentrout, Valiant has been working on this proposal since April 2008. In fact, Valiant Partners was formed in April of 2008 for the specific purpose of pitching a proposal for a conference center to Ann Arbor City Council. That nice head start gave the Four Princes Valiant (Bruce Zenkel, an investment banker and developer from New York, Michael Mailkin, an attorney from New York, Ann Arbor business consultant Fritz Seyferth, and attorney Bruce Elliott) lots of time to schmooze the folks at the city and Downtown Development Authority (DDA), as well as at University of Michigan.
The proposal includes two letters of recommendation from University of Michigan deans. The first is Dr. James O. Woolliscroft, MD, Dean. Is it me, or does his letter of “endorsement” sound like it was written while sitting under a naked bulb with water boarding apparatus nearby? The two sentence (seriously, two sentence) letter says, “A conference center that will allow Ann Arbor to host large events is desirable, and I support efforts to make this reality.” Replace “conference center” with bawdy house, and we have a space to meet Dr. Woolliscroft’s needs, n’est pas? The other “endorser” was the Dean David C. Munson, Jr., Dean of Engineering. “We have a strong need for a space for plenary sessions with 500 participants and break-out sessions of 75 participants,” writes the Dean of Engineering. Oh, it should be “centrally” located, as well. Yo, Dr. Munson, the Second Floor Ballroom at the Michigan League holds 500 nicely. In fact this handy room capacity document shows that the Michigan League has all the space for which Dr. Munson says Ann Arbor has a “strong need.” Thus, why he “strongly endorses the need for a conference center” remains a mystery….or not.
The deans’ “endorsements” are blatant pimping out of their titles given to them by the University of Michigan. Munson’s letter of “endorsement” borders on the outright deceptive, and as for Woolliscroft’s “endorsement” of Seyferth’s conference center project, Fritz Seyferth worked for Dr. James Woolliscroft as a development officer at the University of Michigan cardiovascular center until November 30, 2008. It appears that friends never let friends pitch multi-million dollar conference centers without providing letters of “endorsement.” The supposedly unsullied “endorsement” would have read somewhat differently had Dr. W. written, “I support the efforts of my former employee Fritz Seyferth to make this conference center a reality.”
It reminds me of U of M former Provost Dr. Paul Courant’s “endorsement” of John Hieftje on the Mayor’s web site and in Hieftje’s campaign literature. Courant goes on about Hizzoner’s “remarkable leadership and skill in a tough budget environment.” Of course, Paul Courant hired Hieftje (who holds a B.A. from Eastern Michigan) to teach in the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy. They work together. So, think about how the “endorsement” for Hieftje would read if it were written, well, honestly: “My employee and work colleague has shown remarkable leadership and skill in a tough budget environment.” That endorsement might kinda leave you with a different impression Courant’s ability to give an unbiased evaluation of Hieftje’s “remarkable” work, might it not?
Back to the Princes Valiant. They had time to interview either 60 or 75 people about the need for a conference center, depending on which page of the proposal you are reading.
They could also teach the folks at Ann Arbor SPARK a thing or two on inflating the economic development impact of their proposal. They’ve managed to turn some temporary construction jobs and low paid service worker jobs into millions of dollars in benefits for Ann Arbor. Water into wine. And on top of all that, the Brothers Valiant are building a 32,000 square foot state of the art conference center that will cost Ann Arbor nothing! That’s right—absolutely nothing! Well, there are a couple of minor things they need. They’d like the city to back the bonds for the project. So, if the the development project goes belly up, like Lower Town and the Georgetown Mall development projects, Ann Arbor taxpayers will be on the hook for the money, and not the developers. But not to worry. There will be no trouble paying the bonds because a big hunk of the property tax revenue from the hotel/condo part of the project will be diverted to pay the bonds, and the developers would like a large part of the room tax to be diverted to paying off the conference center bonds as well. Just because Michigan is in the worst recession in decades and just because the last downtown hotel went belly up and the city could not even sell it for the back taxes doesn’t mean this project won’t be wildly successful.
Despite Valiant’s huge head start, and the substantial support from city insiders, the Acquest proposal is coming on strong. Their cover letter says they have talked to Washtenaw County Administrator Bob Guenzel, Hank Baier (U of M VP for Facilities and Operations) and Jim Kosteva (U of M Director of Community Relations and VP of Government Relations) of the University of Michigan about a public/private opportunity to develop a 40,000 to 50,000 square foot public event/conference center on the YMCA site. In a brilliant move to overcome Valiant’s head start, Acquest has hired the DDA’s construction manager and the parking structure engineer who will be building the underground parking garage. Acquest is proposing a phase 1 consisting of a hotel and about 5,000 square feet of conference space. But have no fears, there are still plenty of opportunities for the public to finance this private development. Acquest is willing to rent the first floor space at “cost” to the city. Acquest even offered to lease spaces in the new parking structure (yeah, the one your tax dollars are being used to build).
The fly in the ointment of the competing Guenzel-Fraser conference center proposals is the Dahlmann proposal for a park. Damn Dennis Dahlmann and his ice rink. Dahlmann’s proposal says he does not need financing, and he clearly has the track record to do the proposed project. If his project is selected, the DDA can save millions because they don’t have the extra cost of supporting a large building. Those savings would make a nice endownment for the parks department. Is it any wonder city officials didn’t want to let the public see the proposals? The spinmeisters need time to figure out how a conference center and hotel paid for by taxpayers beats out having local developer Dennis Dalhmann give the city a large downtown plaza.
Maybe more letters of endorsement? I hear from a reliable source, there are local politicos (County Commissioner Leah Gunn, Representative John Dingell, and State Senator Liz Brater come immediately to mind) who would endorse Satan for the right political reasons. Would they endorse a Temple to Satan? That’s a hell of a good question.
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