Letters
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/17050181.htm
See "Dayton, Fort Wayne not on same footing"
16 questions about Harrison Square
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/news/editorial/17050185.htm
Monday, April 9, 2007
Local Opinions
Posted by scott spaulding at 4/09/2007 08:03:00 AM
Labels: Harrison Square, Opinion
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4 comments:
"Do the young professionals that local companies attract prefer downtown condominiums to living in a nice suburban home where they can visit neighbors, cut grass, grow gardens, etc.?"
YES! I love how this guy loads the question with his opinion of what a young professional should want out of a residence.
I guarantee that I have the chance to talk to more people by walking home to a downtown condo than driving home to my garage and watching American Idol.
I don't care if I don't cut grass another day in my life and I'm not interested in gardening.
Yes, Dayton is roughly 3 degrees warmer on average according to weather.com. This is certainly a compelling argument.
I'll also mention that Dayton has a much larger population area because Cincinatti is only 56 miles away. There is an overlap in population and my guess is that Cincinatti draws the majority of that overlap.
Fort Wayne is 120 miles from its closest neighbor, Indianapolis.
The only way to end the debate of whether there is a market for the condos is for the city to delay expending public funds until the condo developer "pre-sells" 50% of the 60 condos, or 30 condos. Such pre-sales would be based upon plans and specs and drawings, with an earnest deposit of say $5,000 on a $180,000 condo, and the buyer must evidence pre-qualification for a mortgage loan from a mortgage lender.
If this is done, then a substantial amount of speculative risk is removed from this development. It would be a compromise between the naysayers and the highly optimistic. I would say the members of the YLNI group would be a target market for the pre-sales and one would hope they would step up and support the project not just by being verbal supporters but by signing a purchase agreement. The sales prices are ranging from $180,000 to $300,000, which seems to be a bit high for Fort Wayne's yuppies, but only will time will tell.
Since most young people do not want to be tied down with owning real estate, but would likely rent, then the developers should allow non-owner occupied units in addition to owner-occupied units, whereby investors would lease out the condos. How about some of our very vocal supporters of Harrison Square such as certain city council members, the mayor, the deputy mayor, other public officials, and certain private leaders who have publicly and strongly supported this project step up and lead by example and buy a condo. This would surely give the public more confidence when these folks are willing to risk their own personal capital in addition to the taxpayer's money.
The retail part of the development can also work similar to the above -- hold off on disbursing pubic funds until a 50% "pre-leasing" level is achieved.
Finally, on each phase of all the developments -- condos, retail, ballpark, and hotel -- the city should require the developers to put their committed "equity" into the construction costs first before the public funds. This would help make sure the developers have their money available as they state, instead of finding out after the city funds its share the developers cash is mysteriously not available, causing the taxpayers to have to fund more than the estimated amounts. Also, how much of the developer's "equity" is actually loans? Do they have loan approvals from lenders? What are the terms and conditions of the lenders? Shouldn't the city make sure these loan conditions are met before public funds are expended?
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