Here are some photos of the road being poured on Bradley Ave. last night.  As a reminder, the road will be closed tonight as well.

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Tuesday night will be the Study Session on the parking deck associated with M2. The information has been before us in other ways last vote being in Feb. However, given the number of e-mails and phone calls I have received about the potential increase in parking costs downtown I am hoping citizens are at the meeting to give input.

The deck is proposed at either 500 or 600 spaces depending upon cost (which apparently we will find out about on Tuesday at the meeting). Apparently, the cost per space actually decreases as the size of the deck increases but the cost of the structure increases as floors are added. The lot is proposed to be placed in the area known as the Piano People building and the City lot on Hill Street with an alley to exit through the deck to Hill (which allows delivery and service vehicles to serve the adjacent businesses). If you are wondering how it is going to be financed, the staff memo addresses that:

    Project Contribution to the TIF District. The estimated value of the completed M2 on Neil project, just under $30 million (construction cost and approximate final marketvalue), will contribute over $6.0 million in incremental property tax revenues over theremaining life of the TIF District. A portion of this revenue stream (approximately $3.5million) will be required to make payments on the parking deck debt to cover the gapbetween parking revenues and the cost of the parking deck.”

The parking deck would be financed from three sources of revenue:• Income from the deck itself, including business tenants, residents and customersof the M2 development who would pay market rates for the parking spaces they use• Resources of the Parking Fund in general, which receives revenues from parkingfines and fees throughout the entire parking system• Approximately $3.7 million from the Downtown TIF Fund , most of which willbe derived directly from the M2 project

Since the Parking Fund does not have sufficient cash to immediately fund the deck, debtissuance of approximately $11 million will be required. Although debt service would bepaid with the revenue listed above, staff expects that all, or at least most of the debtwould be issued as “General Obligation” (GO) bonds, secured by the City’s full faith andcredit. Such bonds enjoy a relatively low interest rate because there is little risk ofdefault. Alternatively the City could issue “Revenue Bonds” that would be secured solely by revenues of the Parking Fund. Such bonds demand higher interest rates because their limited backing (the Parking Fund) makes the chance of default greater than GO bonds. Staff believes that the issuance of GO bonds would comply with the City’s debt policies, would not threaten its credit rating and would retain the City’s capacity to issue additional debt for another purpose - if needed in the near future. However, the City’s flexibility to issue future debt would be reduced as total outstanding debt would come closer to the City’s debt capacity. Of course, the City debt capacity will increase overtime as the City pays down existing debt.”

This is a great project and necessary for the M2 project which as you can see above is a 30 million project. However, there are a few items that I would like to see addressed although I know that the structure is necessary and may not be possible if my items are addressed. I quote the staff memo here “If these or other changes are not made, additional assistance will be required from TIF revenues to subsidize the parking structure and will not be available for the project or other uses. It will not be feasible to finance future decks with parking revenues – they will be fully committed to this deck and routine parking operations costs.” It seems like one of those situations where everyone is going to have to give a little to make this work. But at any rate, here are my questions:

1. Staff proposes downtown parking enforcement increase to 7 P.M. by Jan, 2009 and then 9 P.M. by 2010. My question is what does this do to business downtown? It seems like we are trying to encourage a nightlife in our downtown and I am concerned that by having evening parking enforcement that we might discourage people from coming to downtown for dinner/bars/movies/ etc.
2. Staff is proposing an increase in rates to help pay for the bonds necessary to pay for the deck. I realize that this is unpopular but I am willing to vote for it if we can put together a plan for Stevick Center/RSVP. I guess I am thinking that if the meters take paid cards in addition to coins that we can provide some cards at a lower cost to Stevick Center/RSVP for use of their patrons. Especially for the volunteers it seems like we can work something out where their increase per hour is not as large. I was contacted by several seniors stating that they would not be able to volunteer and/or attend Stevick Center if the rates go up. (the proposal is Increase meter rates downtown to $.75/Hr in the core area and $.50/Hr in the secondary area by January 1, 2008).

I am sure there are other questions that I am missing, so e-mail me or come to the meeting.

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I just got this e-mail and it seems to answer most of the questions about the downtown wireless proposal.

Council Members,

I wanted to forward this information to you as supplement to the information you received in your Council Packet. This information was sent via e-mail to me from Dorothy Kallmeyer of Pavlov Media. Also included is a sample of the log-in page that users would see when they attempted to log onto the wireless network. Representatives from Pavlov as well as myself will be present tonight to answer any questions you may have.

T.J. Blakeman

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E-mail From Dorothy Kallmeyer to T.J. Blakeman - June 6, 2007 @ 12:51PM

TJ,

I thought to I would clarify a few things before the meeting just to ensure that we all agree and as others have stated what the catch.

1. There is no catch we are going to provide free internet in the downtown locations that are stated in the proposal. There will be no charge for the service to the City or to the taxpayers.

2. The speed would be at 128mbps again this is a free service. We will not up sell that speed to any of the users, up sell is not an option, Again this is not being done to sell or services to the individual using it in downtown.

3. The user will log on to the sign up page so that we have the required information by law in the event that law enforcement agencies were to request it. The user will be timed out after 3 hours and will be required to re login this is so that actual business’ in the area can not freeload off the service. We do not want to take paying businesses away from ourselves or our competitors. This should not be an issue because this service is designed to bring the business’ more customers to the area.

4. This equipment is designed for the street and not to penetrate through brick so it will not give us a competitive edge.

5. Pavlov Media already provides services in the downtown area; therefore we do not need the street lights for the business accounts. Merely the downtown street service.

6. Our internet is sold to individuals in Multi Dwelling Units and those individual receive speeds based on the location of service, therefore there wireless speed my be faster but not due to up sell. This speed is based on the speed that was purchased by them at there property location by their landlord. This again should not be an issue because we do not provide service to individual homes in Champaign only to large Multi Dwelling locations, mostly student housing.

Dorothy Kallmeyer

attachment: sample log-in screen

T.J. Blakeman, AICP

Planner II

Advance Planning Division

City of Champaign

102 N. Neil

Champaign, Illinois 61820

(217) 403-8800

terry.blakeman@ci.champaign.il.us

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