Thursday, December 13, 2007

Subway No More

11 comments:

Jeff Pruitt said...

Fear not Subway fanatics as the new one will be opening up 3 blocks down the road. And they will certainly have the best Subway in all of the land considering their $400K+ tax abatement.

But of course they won't meet the city's own design guidelines. And they will have a drivethru. And they will have yet another surface parking lot. And they will be in a stand-alone building.

Nevermind. I guess it sucks afterall...

John B. Kalb said...

To Kevin Leininger at the News-Sentinal: In your article today about the move of the downtown Subway you made some statements that lack a basis in fact, to wit:
1) The cost to the city will be "nearly $1 million" - wrong it will exceed $1 million - $375,000 to Good Earth Holdings - $435,000 to Minnick to buy out the lease - $85,000 to compensate for lost sales - $40,000 for real estate and lawyer fees - $16,000 for environmental cleanup ( What is this - to dump a grease trap? or what?)- plus the 10 year tax abatement worth $???,??? - gets us well over $1 million
2) "Looks can be deceiving" when you only "look" at one side of a project. Help me understand - Good Earth Holdings owned the land and had built the building, then leasing it to Mark Minnick's company, Subway Systems Inc. of Fort Wayne for some monthly lease charge. So the city "buys out" the remaining 18 years left on the lease. Was this paid to Good Earth or to Subway? It shouldn't be Good Earth, since they no longer are the landlord (but the city is, as shown by the monthly payments of $1800 that Subway has been paying to Redevelopment in the time that the city has owned the property). So it must be to Subway. A lease payment of $1,800 per month over 18 years comes to $378,000. So we are paying Subway more than the amount they would have paid to Good Earth for 18 years of use of the facility. And Subway does not make these payments anymore, but uses the money to help pay for the lot and new Subway building THAT THEY WILL THEN OWN. Wow, what a good deal! Besides, we will pay about one half of Subway's property taxes for the next 10 years! Plus pay Subway $8,500 per month for up to 10 months that they will be out of business.
3) "Leatherman was charged with acquiring the land for a price that fully compensated the owners without gouging the taxpayers" - Jusy WHO charged Greg L. with this? I could not find any such "charge" covered in any minutes of the Redevelopment Commission any time since January of 2006. In actuality, our Redevelopment DEPARTMENT did this on their own - and illegally at that per Indiana Code 36-7-14-16(b). Again, Greg's excuse is "We did things like this before (like on Grand Wayne Center) so it must be OK.
Kevin, you have exhibited in the past, the skills to do an in depth study of processes like this. How about doing it on this one - and CALL A SPADE A SPADE instead of covering for the illegal activities of our city government.
4) What was the time period that Greg & Co. told ARCH about the planned use of the Griffith home at Jefferson & Clinton? Again this was done very quitely, as has been normal for Redevelopment ( but not for ARCH). What happened here? Per your paper, Angie Quinn stated very recently that the only "historically important structure" involved in the Harrison Square area was the Powers Hamburger building.

John B. Kalb

Luke said...

John- Leave Powers out of this one.

barranda said...

Kalb,

What did you do with your life before HS came into existence?

Change Fort Wayne said...

Actually John - according to your numbers, the purchase came at 951,000 - which is "nearly 1 million"

In actuality the abatement doesn't cost us anything, is just a forgiveness on a tax for a while.

John B. Kalb said...

Barister Barranda - Is this a retorical question or are you really looking for factual information? I did not realize that commenting on political blogs required any pre-qualification. Is this more of political correctness crap?
Change Fort Wayne - Subway at it's old location, in their lease payment, was "paying" property taxes thru Good Earth with NO abatement - now they will be paying an abated amount - How can you say that this reduction doesn't count - IT'S RIGHT OUT OF MY POCKET and yours. This is not rocket science!!!! John B. Kalb

Jeff Pruitt said...

Kalb is right on the abatement. This isn't a new facility, it's just being moved down the road. This abatement certainly cost the taxpayers...

barranda said...

Killjoy Kalb,

I'm just curious. You spend a lot time and effort researching and expressing your opposition to HS. I'm wondering what you did before you had HS to worry about...or even this blog.

John B. Kalb said...

Barranda - I retired on July 5, 2007 after 39 years working as a sales engineer selling state of the art precision inspection equipment to industrial customers in NE Indiana. I will admit that I have more time to spend on research and in bird-dogging things political. I have always been a relative activist on many subjects. I have been, for the last 4 years, involved in saving and restoring a 150 year old home in Adams County with the Indiana German Heritage Society and the Historic Landmarks Foundation. I have been involved with the local celebration of Engineer's Week in NE Indiana, Future City Competition, Society of Manufacturing Engineers International Scholarship committee, and other activities. If you think I spend all my time on fighting Harrison Square, you don't know me. We need to meet somewhere in one of our mutual interest activities so we can better understand where each of us is coming from (and heading toward). John B. Kalb

barranda said...

Killjoy Kalb,

I think I speak for many of us when i say that we are fortunate that these guys have put this blog together to give many of us a platform to voice our opinions regarding HS and downtown activities.

I don't think you spend all your time dogging HS. It's just obvious that you do a lot of research on HS and local politics/policies. Feel free to drop me an email if you ever want to meet/talk.

John B. Kalb said...

Barranda - We totally agree that Scott & Brian have given us a great vehicle for local discourse, as well as others - Harper, Pruit, Turkette et al. I will give you a call to get together after the holidays. Thanks John B. Kalb