The senior housing development along East Market Street had a problem with foundry slag as it was started a few weeks ago, increasing the developer’s costs by over $80,000 so far.
On behalf of the developer, Englewood, Warsaw City Planner Jeremy Skinner asked the Redevelopment Commission on Monday to assist with the overrun costs, specifically $16,000 for the purchase and installation of a lift station pump, which the city will ultimately take over anyway once the lift station is completed. The Redevelopment Commission approved an amount not to exceed the $16,000.
Foundry slags are waste materials generated by metal casting processes at metal foundries.
“It wasn’t so much the soil. They knew the soil issues, and they identified that they would have to do pilings,” Skinner said. “What happened was, they went to put the pilings down and they couldn’t get past the slag. They couldn’t get the pilings through the slag, so they ended up having to dig out the slag, which was created the issue and the additional cost in removing that dirt from the property. If they would have just been able to pile down through, they wouldn’t have had any slag to remove from the site. Given that they couldn’t drive the piles, they actually had to bore out the slag to put the pilings down, which is what created the cost overrun.”
He said he looked at several options and the easiest one for the Redevelopment Commission to complete was to pay for the pumps and lift station. The lift station will become the city’s at the end, anyway, and there is more than one user for that lift station.
The $16,000 is an estimate for the costs of the pumps to be installed.
Redevelopment President Tim Meyer asked if Englewood did test sample the soil prior to construction. Skinner said they did, but it wasn’t the soil that was the issue, rather they couldn’t get the pilings to go through the foundry slag.
Rick Snodgrass, Redevelopment vice president, asked how deep were the soil samples. Skinner guessed 20 to 25 feet. Snodgrass asked how many feet deep was it when they ran into trouble with the pilings.
“So, the ones they had issue with getting through the slag, some of them they were only able to drill down 3 to 4 feet before they hit the slag and they couldn’t get it to go past that. But most of the pilings are about 13 to 15 feet deep, I believe,” Skinner said.
He said it wasn’t that they didn’t know the slag was there, but they didn’t know they couldn’t drive the pilings through the slag.
Meyer said, “I guess my question is, why is that our problem?”
Skinner said he couldn’t give him an answer of why they should or shouldn’t help, but could only tell him that the $16,000 was his recommendation.
“Do I think we owe them any additional money? No. Do I think this is 72 residential, affordable housing units for seniors and anything we contribute reduces the long-term costs for those seniors to be housed? Yes. So that’s the goal. And our $16,000 contribution is going toward that goal,” Skinner said.
Meyer said he was looking from the standpoint of the general taxpayers. “Should they have to pay anything toward a cost overrun of a project that somebody else has taken over?”
Skinner said they absolutely don’t have to contribute to the project if they didn’t want to.
After listening to the board’s discussion, Mayor Joe Thallemer said, “I’m in support of it because I think the critical nature of the housing issue in our community is important. We went into this in good faith with the developer. We have contributed a certain amount. We could have contributed more initially. The more you contribute, the more points you get on the Real Housing Tax Credit scoring.”
He said he could go either away on providing the $16,000 but felt the project is important to the community and that’s why the city is on board with it.
“That’s why we’re partnering with the state in the form of tax credits. That’s why we supported the project and actually submitted the application for the developer for the housing tax credit portion of it. And we’ve already contributed a portion of it. I would just call it a good-faith partnership for a project that is very, very important to our community right now,” Thallemer said.
City Councilman Jeff Grose, also a Redevelopment Commission member, said the project was sound for the area and would provide 72 units. “I’m strongly in favor of it,” he said before making the motion to approve the $16,000. Member George Clemens provided the second and it was unanimously approved.
The Commission next approved contributing $175,000 out of the Northern TIF District fund toward the reconstruction of a hangar door at the municipal airport. The project’s expected total cost is $674,262, and the bid for that was accepted by the Board of Works Friday from Robinson Construction.
Skinner said the city owns the airport hangar and the door has been failing for a number of years, and the cost to maintain it has been high. Money to pay for the door also will come out of Economic Development Income Tax and airport funds.
“This is an economic development project, obviously. The city’s airport is a large part of our ability to draw in companies and their use of the airport, so it is not out of line to use these funds to support that cost,” Skinner said.
City Councilman Mike Klondaris, also a Redevelopment Commission member, said, “We are the Redevelopment Commission and it’s our mandate to keep reinvesting and redeveloping in our community. … And by reinvesting in our airport, which I strongly support, we are doing our job.”
He made a motion to approve the $175,000 contribution and it was unanimously approved.
Later in the meeting, Skinner informed the board that he was trying to work on a Central TIF District expansion. The idea behind the expansion is to accommodate HopLore for a riverfront liquor license downtown. He said he was trying to bring in the old Owen’s grocery store property so he only had to do the expansion once, but it may have to be excluded for now.
“So in December, I hopefully will have before you a TIF expansion for the Central TIF, primarily for a liquor license, to enable HopLore to get a liquor license for the riverfront district,” Skinner said.
Klondaris said, “HopLore coming downtown, I think, is a pretty exciting event. That’s going to be a nice draw.”
“Especially into a building that’s been under-utilized for some time now,” Skinner agreed.
Klondaris asked, “Riverfront, doesn’t that have to be within 1,500 feet?”
“It has to be within 1,500 feet unless there’s some unuseable, undevelopable property, i.e. flood plain, wetlands. Because there is some flood plain down there, that allows us to increase it to 3,500 feet, which is what we’ll be proposing as part as this expansion of the TIF and the expansion of the riverfront district,” Skinner said.
Finally, Skinner told the Commission that work continues on the Buffalo Street Plaza.
“We’re probably looking at sometime in end of February, maybe March, when it’s all done. We’re still dealing with material issues and not being able to get materials, so it’s kind of delaying the project a little bit,” Skinner said, adding that the art piece may be installed in a couple weeks.
