Click the download icon to the right to get updated city water pressure contour map presented at the Jan 3rd Council Work session. It is 8 mb and takes a long time to render on most computers.
If you are unfamiliar with the discussion of the North Pressure Zone you can read this article. Here are some of the points made:
Water Pressure
After the project is complete the average water pressure in this new pressure zone will be 80 psi [1]. The typica…
The Huber Heights Comprehensive Plan is presented in three parts:
Part I: Introduction: introduces the purpose and intent of the plan, the planning process and the
background research and key findings.
Part II: The Vision: presents the vision statement, goals and objectives for the community and a
physical plan including the character action areas, the future land use plan, and the infrastructure
description and recommendations.
The attached file is a scan of papers the city provided as the response to my Freedom of Information Act request. In that request I asked for two items:
1. The audit/report done by the Montgomery County TID in 2011 that showed the city would be able to finance the Aquatic Center using TIF funds.
2. The report done by city staff that showed the city would be able to finance the new Music Center using TIF funds.
The city authorized $140,000 in order to do due diligence to determine if the Music Center was an economically feasible endeavor. This report was the result of the last $40,000 spent. Download is in .pdf format
The Music Center Validation study available here at HuberResidents.org has not be published by the city and the content raises concerns about the operation and revenue expectation.
Here are the notes I used when I spoke to council. You can…
Introduction
Currently, Huber Heights’ residents living in single family homes, have the opportunity to choose their own waste collection provider. There are several companies who service the city and residents can choose the options and services that best meet their needs. The Huber Heights City Council has requested that City Staff look into the fea…
Update:
The council approved the ordinance on April 8, 2013. Here is a link to the agenda item. You can find the Resolution as an attachment as well as the contract.
Original ________________________________________________________________________________
The city has been looking into contracting with a single trash hauling company to provide residential service for the city. Three companies responded to the Request for Proposal (RFP). This documen…
Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a substitution for traditional property taxes. This is a map of the TIF Districts in Huber Heights that was provided by the city in early 2012.
Executive Summary: The Heights retail, hospitality and office development will significantly increase the economic activity in the region and generate millions of dollars of public funds for the City of Huber Heights, Huber Heights Consolidated School District, Montgomery County and the State of Ohio.
This document was revealed on the day the residents first learned about the Heights Development Project
The download is still of the 2013 proposed budget. Here is a link to the 2014 budget long version
and 2014 budget short version
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This is a compressed copy of the 2013 Huber Heights Budget as proposed in the Nov 2012 Administration Committee meeting. The first reading of this budget will be done in the 26 Nov 2012 City Council Meeting. Approval of the budget will occur in the Dec 10, 2012 meeting.
In 2010, the City of Huber Heights contracted with the Center for Urban and Public Affairs (CUPA) at Wright State University to conduct a random telephone survey to assess resident perceptions of parks and recreation in Huber Heights, as well as waste collection services and water softening. This summary report will provide an analysis of the data collection which occurred from August-October of 2010.
The city council often quoted this survey to justif…
Council voted to authorize the $12 million contract for the Music Center Building Package on Monday. To date there has been no public discussion that shows council members have seen or understand the financial impact to the city. The Music Center Validation study available here at HuberResidents.org has not be published by the city and the content raises concerns about the operation and revenue expectation.
Tonight we are going to vote whether we want to spend the largest portion of the cost to build the Music Center. Although it looks like we are fully committed because we have already spent $2.3 million on the land purchase and $2.4 million on preparing the site, it may be possible to recover most of that money if it turns out the Music Center concept is not feasible. However, after we get started on the building it will be impossible to make up for mistakes in planning. So I'm asking council to reflect on the wisdom of going forward when council hasn't demonstrated in public the feasibility of the project.
Because the city has not provided any in-depth public discussion about the feasibility of the Music Center, I recently asked the city to provide the reports that council used to decide we will be able to pay off the debt associated with the Recreational Complex and the Music Center. I was provided two documents concerning the financing and the Validation Study. These documents although never made public as part of an official city meeting or discussion make me wonder if council members can make a responsible decision on whether we as a city should go forward with the Music Center.
Specific concerns about the information that council appears to be using to justify the project include: Incomplete analysis of the revenue we expect from new business in "The Heights", dated information about the financing of Aquatic Center, an unrealistic expectation of being able to hold 6 festivals a year, a business plan the calls for directly competing with the Dayton Philharmonic by bringing in the Cincinnati Symphony 4 times a year, a marketing plan that implies we can fill the music center with just $2000 of advertising per event, and an expense expectation based on the city hiring all the management personnel even though it recommends a more costly outside management arrangement. Most interesting is that even though council is open about our design being based on the design for the PNC pavilion and that they hired the same contractor that built theirs to build ours, they have done a poor job in explaining the differences in the two projects that justify why our project costs $18 million while the Validation Report tells us the PNC was built for $6.5
The document addressing the Aquatic Center had specific information about the specific pieces of property that would be generating the taxes to pay off the Aquatic Center debt. For instance it tells us to expect Wal-mart to pay $239,000 worth of tax until 2015 and then $101,000 in tax after that. The document for the music center does not show that type of detail and it doesn't give any indication how the tax numbers were created.
The other big problem with the report the city gave me about the Music Center financing was it was still using data from Sept 2011 when the Recreational Complex computations were done. In that report they expected to finance up $6.8 million in 2011 at 4.5% interest. We know that they now intend to complete that financing in November of 2013, instead of $6.8 million they have $12.5 million of Recreational Complex debt to finance and we don't know the interest rate but we do know they have been climbing since April. On the bright side because they haven't been paying the debt the TIF money "on hand" is significantly higher than the $2 million they expected to start with in 2011. This should offset some of the problems caused by higher interest rates and almost twice the expected principle. However, without an updated report with real numbers it is impossible for council to know if we are on schedule to pay of the Aquatic Center and so it is impossible to make a responsible decision about the new debt for the Music Center.
Specific concerns from the Music Center validation center include an expectation that the city will be able to hold 6 music festivals a year where we sell 30,000, $15,00 tickets. In the Validation Report it tells us planning for each successful event can take more than a year. I've not seen any public discussion that shows the planning for next year's event have begun.
Looking at the Validation Plan we see they plan to bring the Cincinnati Symphony here 4 times a year to compete against the Dayton Philharmonic. Last year the city brought the Dayton Philharmonic to Huber Heights and more than half the available 800 seats went empty.
The Validation Study show the 6 festivals and 4 Local Events are suppose to bring in almost half the total number of people using the Music Center.
The report tells us to succeed will take aggressive marketing and also shows us that they intend on doing this with less than $2000 of event marketing per Music Center event. In contrast when the city brought in the Dayton Philharmonic they authorized $6000 for marketing that event.
The report tells us to hire a management company. Then it computes the cost of the Managing Director, Production & Operations Manager and 4 other positions as if they were going to be city employees. Cost to hire these same people using a private contractor could easily add $150,000 to the cost of managing the facility.
The Validation Study tells us the PNC Pavilion cost $6.5 million. We know the PNC didn't have to purchase property and they shared the cost of parking, restrooms and concession stands with Riverbend. Our facility also will have a better cosmetic appeal and a sound barrier between it and the highway. However, council has not taken the time to show the public how these differences add up to $12 million in additional cost.
Tonight we are going to vote on whether we should spend the largest portion of the Music Center cost and the information provided to the residents of Huber Heights does not show the project is feasible. I ask each council member to reflect on the vote they are about to cast. If they are aware of information that mitigates these concerns I ask that they provide it in an open public meeting. It they are unaware I ask that they defer a yes vote until a proper assessment is completed.
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Aug 20, 2013 Notes from Administration Committee meeting: The Music Center project manager started the meeting showing council some renderings (pictures) of some of the architectural features. I missed the absolute beginning of the presentation so I wasn't in the meeting when it was stated definitively but I gather from subsequent comments that the plan is to lower the floor below the natural surface. I believe this is being done to lower the noise impact both to the public and the music center. As one of our readers suggested the noise from the highway is a concern. The developers realize this as well and are planning to build a concrete barrier between the highway and the music center. This concrete barrier will be built with aesthetics in mind as well.The acoustic engineer for the project went out to the PNC to do noise level measurements. From his calculations if there were nothing in between the Music Center and the nearest houses to the Music Center then the noise level from the Huber Height Music center would be about 70 to 75 decibels at their porches. This equates to about as noisy as people set their volume when they watch TV or a vacuum cleaner. The request for qualifications for the building package was sent out and there were 5 respondents. All 5 respondents were considered qualified to bid on this portion of the project. The report by the project manager was that it was obvious that all 5 packages were prepared by qualified architects. An interesting point that came out in this discussion was that the insurance requirement the builder had to meet was $10 million. I was glad to here the project manager state that the RFQ was posted on Dodge and in the Plan Room. I was disappointed that it appears that none of the council members confirmed before hand the RFQ would be widely posted by asking for a list. Nor did any of them ask for a copy of any of the ads. To me advertising the RFQ seemed like an important aspect of the bidding procedure. Back in June it appeared that a good advertisement was important to at least one of the council members also. As a side note when the city decided to advertise the RFQ for the early site work one of the places they did this was on the city's website on the Music Center page. It appears as if they did not use this resource for the building package.Another interesting item - the bid package is 150 pages long. Expect the bids to arrive the first week of September. Good Sports is in the architectural design phase. There is no formal city / Good Sports agreement in place. Good Sports has not yet submitted a zoning permit application. Their private funding efforts are schedule to close in the next couple of weeks. Besides our project they are looking to raise enough capital to build 6 other projects.
April 13, 2013 - Tuesday April 16 at the Administration committee meeting - Music Center Proposals There are five proposals being requested to start the design work on the music center. Opening the first couple and we see they are extensive documents that deserve more attention and their own write-up. Please open and review. I appreciate your posting of your review and thoughts.
March 25, 2013 - Council decided to enter into a Management Agreement with Ken Conaway LLC. You can read the agreement from the download PDF packet in the agenda. The agreement starts on page 39 of the download. I have created a cost analysis and determined this agreement is about 68% more expensive than it needs to be in order to achieve the desired results. See that analysis at The Heights and the Music Center look for the write-up at video 07.
March 20, 2013 Council approved going forward with the project during the Mar 14th council meeting. I started an issues section on The Heights and the Music Center that currently has the some of the video of the meeting broken into sections. I will still maintain updates here. I posted my notes from the Mar 20th Admin meeting as a comment below. DDN article with 2 min video DDN Huber Heights approves $18M music center project
Note; everyone is willing to mention the studies but no one publishes them.
update5mar13 Notes from the Mar 5th 2013 Admin Meeting
First the most interesting thing to come out of the meeting is that the City will buy the property right next to Meijer and build the Music center there. This is across the street from where it was originally planned and closer to rt 70.
Even though it is just across the road this should be a much better site for a couple of reasons. We will have to wait until the professionals analyze it but I think the noise profile will be better. It does put it closer to the houses on the other side of Rt 70. I expect it will be easier to mitigate this because of what needs to be done to protect these houses from highway noise.
The Music Center will now be obvious from the highway. During the presentation they also noted that the new (pretty) billboards the city plans on putting up can go on this land which will save the city from purchasing land for that purpose.
Changing avenues. I was glad to see there were quite a few everyday interested citizens that came out to see the presentation and learn about the project. The meeting had to be moved out to the main meeting room. As a little commentary neither of these rooms works for the kind of committee meetings I envision when we end up getting 8 to 10 citizens per meeting per Ward. I particularly didn't like standing at the podium and making a statement. I'd much rather we sat with our council representative at tables and then prompted them to make the points we feel need addressed.
Back to the Music Center;
The city has a letter of intent from Good Sports Enterprises that if the music center goes up they plan on building, on the same parcel, a Hotel and Sports Complex. The Sports complex alone is suppose to be 60,000 square feet. The letter of intent was discussed some but I didn't hear details that showed they were committed financially or any of the caveats. We know that the city told us the music center needs at least 20 acres and I know that Meijer has been asking $125,000 per acre for that property and that the city has a not to exceed $1.5 million budget for land acquisition that they told us was still valid. The obvious conclusion is that Meijer lowered their price but we didn't see those details. Another possibility might be that Good Sports is picking up some of the land acquisition cost. We guess at other possibilities as well. It will be interesting to see the letters of intent.
On that same theme - I'm hoping the city publishes on their website all the documents that were referred to in this meeting. This not only includes the letters of intent but also includes:
The calculations and analysis used to determine the city will generate enough TIF revenue to cover the $18 million we will borrow to build the project.
To put this analysis in context council should also make available the formal report the Montgomery County Transportation Improvement District (TID) prepared. That report validated the amount of TIF money available for the Aquatic Center
The CS&L validation study. This study is 155 pages that outlines the economic development and revenue possibilities that occur because the facility is being built.
Janell spoke to the council. She is a frequent concert goer and likes the idea of having a music center this close. She also is a critical thinker and when she did some research found some pavilion facilities in the area that have not succeeded. When I think about what kind of information I'd be looking for inside the CS&L report that the council received I'd be looking not only to learn from those areas that were successful but also to make sure I knew the reasons other facilities failed. I'd expect this report to try and quantify how many "music centers" were built and then characterize them into successful, ok, and bust. Inside that report should be a decent amount of examples of each to include the key points that defined the reasons they were or were not successful. I am glad council expressed their gratitude to Janell and willingness to look at her research. But we all know it is harder for them to make a good decision if they don't take that information and have "the professional" incorporate it into the recommendation package (validation report). Hopefully, council will post that report this week and council won't have to send it back to CS&L because that type of critical thinking will already be included.
The PP and PDF presentations given during the meeting
The MKSK traffic study
The calculations and inflation (deflation?) assumptions used in order to re-adjust the cost of building the PNC to reflect today's prices.
Other interesting random information:
The developer was asked by council in September 2012 to outline a plan for this particular project. This implies council had information that there was a significant amount of money available for some type of project (or to pay of other debts?). We haven't heard what other types of projects may have been considered.
The full development of the stores and businesses that will make up "The Heights" isn't expected to finish until 2035.
Plan for council to approve going forward with the project during next Thursday's general council meeting (note Thursday is a change from the normal meeting day). Here is a March 9th article from the DDN: Proposed music center, sports fieldhouse to ‘improve quality of life’ in region
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Notes from Administration Committee Meeting----------22 Jan 2013
First let me commend the council for an informative discussion. During the initial presentation I had written down questions and points, most of those I was able to cross through because they were brought up by council members
Notes:
The assistant city manager constructed the financial analysis that concludes the city's current TIF districts will support paying the debt the city will incur to build the Music Center. In 2010, the city asked Steve Stanley of the Montgomery County Transportation Improvement District (TID) to audit the current and projected revenues from the TIF district created in order to fund the I-70 interchanges. This resulted in a finding that the city could responsibly borrow up to $6 million dollars. The city used more than $6 million of TIF money to build the aquatic / recreational facility. To date the assistant city manager's computations / report has not been furnished to council in their Weekly Report to Council or in an open committee meeting. From what I understand of the TID audit made it easier to attract good interest rates for notes and bonds associated with the funding of the recreational facility. DDN Article: Huber Heights considering funding options for $18M Music Center
Tonight council discussed widening the scope of their due diligence examination of the proposed Music Center. This involves hiring a consulting firm named Convention Sport and Leisure (CSL) to do a Validation Study. In this validation study the company is suppose to provide an expert analysis that tells us how much and what kind of business will want to locate into The Heights Development project because of the Music Center. This analysis is will tell us how much income tax these new businesses should generate for the county. The city plans on trying to sell the naming rights to the new Music Center. With a study produced by independent experts instead of the people that built and funded the project, someone planning on buying the naming rights will have a good idea of how much it is worth - or at least the city should get a good idea on how much they should charge for it.
The reason council decided to consider conducting this study probably had nothing to do with this 8 Jan 2013 comment,
"Notice there are no contracts consulting an economic development expert to evaluate the feasibility of music center operations, the compatibility with the rest of "The Heights" development project, or impact on surrounding communities. When council was asked what company would perform these due diligence requirements the response was there was no plan to consult an outside agency and the city manager would make that call with city council help".
Instead it probably is because city staff is in conversation with county officials and they seem very interested in helping to find other grants and government funds to help pay for the project but they want more assurance that the revenues were correctly measured.
In this conversation about the study Ms Dudley brought up a great question. She asked if the report that would be produced would meet any certification standard. City staff was not aware of any Validation or Feasibility study certification agency. Nor were they aware of any agency or association that certifies a firm as being qualified to prepare a feasibility study. However, staff will look into and make sure CSL is qualified. Ms Dudley also suggested they could check into getting a Dunn and Bradstreet report. It appears from their website that a Dunn and Bradstreet report is kind of like a credit report or maybe even a BBB report. It would be interesting to know how much one of these costs.
This brings up one more interesting discussion, does it really make sense to pay for a report to determine if the company you are hiring to do a study that has already been "done" by city staff. The tone I have presented in this article is yes. However, the fact is I don't know how good of a study city staff has prepare because that report has not been made available during normal committee meetings. I'm not sure these reports have even been presented to council members.
CSL already comes with a high verbal recommendation from the assistant city manager. He personally saw the quality of their work when he was involved in a successful Orlando project.
The projected cost for this validation study is between $30,000 and $40,000. City staff researched and determined that normally a study like this would cost between $45,000 and $150,000. Since city staff has already done a lot of the background work their preliminary discussions with the company indicate the price should be no greater than $40,000. Money for to pay for this study will come out of the Economic Development Fund.
Also noted, the three previously mentioned contracts associated with the "due diligence" have been awarded. They will use up $90,000 of the $100,000 approved so far for the due diligence portion of the project.
In the beginning of this article I told you this was an informative and interesting meeting. But I may have just been a little biased. Biased like a father that just watched his kid take a first step. I already pointed out council realized they needed to do some real due diligence instead of just starting to build the center.
Even more enjoyable was the discussion council had that will help prevent them from making the same mistakes they made when they did the study suggested by Don Allen Holbrook LLC. Now there is no evidence they watched the video I made before they authorized the Holbrook study in Dec 2011, or that they are influenced at all by my efforts. But it still makes me happy to see the discussions mature and possibly prevent this new study from having the same result as the Theme park study.
The video shows the concerns I had with the Holbrook study before council authorized the study. Council did a good job today addressing the last 2 minutes of this video.
-------17 Jan 2013 ------
There was a presentation at the Public Works committee by Ken Conley of DEC. This is some of the information I recorded:
The design of this music center is the same as the PNC Pavilion but includes cosmetic differences to reflect its more prominent location within the city.
The projected cost of the project is still $18 million. The city is looking to acquire 28 acres for this portion of the project. The minimum needed is 20 acres. The music center will take up about 5 acres with parking, restrooms, green space taking up the rest.
There was some attempt to figure out if they could build a fully enclosed music center. The developer found a recently constructed facility in the south west that cost about $60 million. The difference in price between a covered venue versus an enclosed venue has a lot to do with the construction necessary in order to make the building safe for that many people (in other words - building codes). With an enclosed facility you have to include plumbing for fire suppression, you have to design exits and entries, restrooms will need to be inside. In addition to the safety aspect, it is also more difficult to make sure the sound quality of the concerts are good. An enclosed facility has to be designed to take into account more of the sound bouncing off the structure.
Lawn seating was discussed. The drawbacks are that they plan on using about the same design as the PNC which (in theory) would reduce design costs. That design doesn't lend itself to lawn seating. Also, with lawn seating you have to design the facility so the sound goes out to the lawn which may result in noise complaints. Presently, city council is sensitive about creating another situation where they have to deal with noise complaints.
There was a statement that made it sound like city employees worked up some of the numbers to see if there would be enough TIF money to pay for the project. This analysis was not presented but it may require the funds from every TIF district in the city. The committee heard rumors of projected profits. Ken differed that discuss to council.
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At the administration committee meeting Tuesday Jan 8th 2013 council members received an update from the DEC representative that included DEC drafting contracts for the city to approve:
1. a company that would design and place the music center and do traffic studies
2. an Architect for the Music Center
3. a company to do acoustical engineering
The specific companies the city will hire were included as part of the contract. Council was advised these companies could be chosen without a bid process because the city is going to classify these as professional service contracts.
Copies of the contracts were not provided in the read ahead for the council or the public. No details about the terms of the contracts were discussed. No council member asked for a copy of the contracts to review. The contracts will not be included as part of the minutes of the committee meeting. It was stated that once the city signs the contracts they will become public records and residents can ask to review them then.
Notice there are no contracts consulting an economic development expert to evaluate the feasibility of music center operations, the compatibility with the rest of "The Heights" development project, or impact on surrounding communities. When council was asked what company would perform these due diligence requirements the response was there was no plan to consult an outside agency and the city manager would make that call with city council help.
Council decided they would not actively invite community comments. As an alternative the public can attend regularly scheduled committee meetings and get educated about the project by listening to the developer's presentation. The developer currently plans to address:
The Jan 15th Planning Commission meeting
The Jan 17th Parks and Recreation meeting
The Jan 21st Arts and Beautification meeting
The developer will report to the Administration Committee again on Jan 22nd.
Council voted to authorize the $12 million contract for the Music Center Building Package on Monday. To date there has been no public discussion that shows council members have seen or understand the financial impact to the city. The Music Center Validation study available here at HuberResidents.org has not be published by the city and the content raises concerns about the operation and revenue expectation.
Tonight we are going to vote whether we want to spend the largest portion of the cost to build the Music Center. Although it looks like we are fully committed because we have already spent $2.3 million on the land purchase and $2.4 million on preparing the site, it may be possible to recover most of that money if it turns out the Music Center concept is not feasible. However, after we get started on the building it will be impossible to make up for mistakes in planning. So I'm asking council to reflect on the wisdom of going forward when council hasn't demonstrated in public the feasibility of the project.
Because the city has not provided any in-depth public discussion about the feasibility of the Music Center, I recently asked the city to provide the reports that council used to decide we will be able to pay off the debt associated with the Recreational Complex and the Music Center. I was provided two documents concerning the financing and the Validation Study. These documents although never made public as part of an official city meeting or discussion make me wonder if council members can make a responsible decision on whether we as a city should go forward with the Music Center.
Specific concerns about the information that council appears to be using to justify the project include: Incomplete analysis of the revenue we expect from new business in "The Heights", dated information about the financing of Aquatic Center, an unrealistic expectation of being able to hold 6 festivals a year, a business plan the calls for directly competing with the Dayton Philharmonic by bringing in the Cincinnati Symphony 4 times a year, a marketing plan that implies we can fill the music center with just $2000 of advertising per event, and an expense expectation based on the city hiring all the management personnel even though it recommends a more costly outside management arrangement. Most interesting is that even though council is open about our design being based on the design for the PNC pavilion and that they hired the same contractor that built theirs to build ours, they have done a poor job in explaining the differences in the two projects that justify why our project costs $18 million while the Validation Report tells us the PNC was built for $6.5
The document addressing the Aquatic Center had specific information about the specific pieces of property that would be generating the taxes to pay off the Aquatic Center debt. For instance it tells us to expect Wal-mart to pay $239,000 worth of tax until 2015 and then $101,000 in tax after that. The document for the music center does not show that type of detail and it doesn't give any indication how the tax numbers were created.
The other big problem with the report the city gave me about the Music Center financing was it was still using data from Sept 2011 when the Recreational Complex computations were done. In that report they expected to finance up $6.8 million in 2011 at 4.5% interest. We know that they now intend to complete that financing in November of 2013, instead of $6.8 million they have $12.5 million of Recreational Complex debt to finance and we don't know the interest rate but we do know they have been climbing since April. On the bright side because they haven't been paying the debt the TIF money "on hand" is significantly higher than the $2 million they expected to start with in 2011. This should offset some of the problems caused by higher interest rates and almost twice the expected principle. However, without an updated report with real numbers it is impossible for council to know if we are on schedule to pay of the Aquatic Center and so it is impossible to make a responsible decision about the new debt for the Music Center.
Specific concerns from the Music Center validation center include an expectation that the city will be able to hold 6 music festivals a year where we sell 30,000, $15,00 tickets. In the Validation Report it tells us planning for each successful event can take more than a year. I've not seen any public discussion that shows the planning for next year's event have begun.
Looking at the Validation Plan we see they plan to bring the Cincinnati Symphony here 4 times a year to compete against the Dayton Philharmonic. Last year the city brought the Dayton Philharmonic to Huber Heights and more than half the available 800 seats went empty.
The Validation Study show the 6 festivals and 4 Local Events are suppose to bring in almost half the total number of people using the Music Center.
The report tells us to succeed will take aggressive marketing and also shows us that they intend on doing this with less than $2000 of event marketing per Music Center event. In contrast when the city brought in the Dayton Philharmonic they authorized $6000 for marketing that event.
The report tells us to hire a management company. Then it computes the cost of the Managing Director, Production & Operations Manager and 4 other positions as if they were going to be city employees. Cost to hire these same people using a private contractor could easily add $150,000 to the cost of managing the facility.
The Validation Study tells us the PNC Pavilion cost $6.5 million. We know the PNC didn't have to purchase property and they shared the cost of parking, restrooms and concession stands with Riverbend. Our facility also will have a better cosmetic appeal and a sound barrier between it and the highway. However, council has not taken the time to show the public how these differences add up to $12 million in additional cost.
Tonight we are going to vote on whether we should spend the largest portion of the Music Center cost and the information provided to the residents of Huber Heights does not show the project is feasible. I ask each council member to reflect on the vote they are about to cast. If they are aware of information that mitigates these concerns I ask that they provide it in an open public meeting. It they are unaware I ask that they defer a yes vote until a proper assessment is completed.
Correction to $12.5 million figure cited in council presentation
Turns out the pre-meeting write-up I had posted on the web site gave better insight into the financing portion of the issue.
When I constructed the revision it was not my intention for the $12.5 million recreational complex number I cited to include money borrowed because of the Music Center. The city officially refers to the combination of the Aquatic Center and Eichelberger Amphitheater as the Recreational Complex. On April 22, 2013 the city passed "An Ordinance Providing For The Issuance And Sale Of Notes In The Maximum Principal Amount Of $4,500,000, In Anticipation Of The Issuance Of Bonds, For The Purpose Of Paying The Costs Of Improving The City's Municipal Recreation Facilities". They also passed "An Ordinance Providing For The Issuance And Sale Of Notes In The Maximum Principal Amount Of $8,020,000, In Anticipation Of The Issuance Of Bonds, For The Purpose Of Paying The Costs Of Improving The City's Municipal Recreation Facilities".
In the second piece of legislation it was obvious this was for the construction of the Aquatic Center because the agenda item description continues with "By Constructing, Equipping And Furnishing A Multi-Purpose Municipal Recreation Complex To Include Among Other Things An Aquatic Center, Athletic Playing Fields, Outdoor Amphitheater, Recreational Trails, Picnic Shelters, Playgrounds, Dog Park, And Related Facilities, Including The Acquisition Of Real Property And Interests Therein And Improving The Site Therefor, Together With All Driveways, Roads, Parking Facilities, And Other Necessary Appurtenances Thereto, And Declaring An Emergency".
In the first piece of legislation I mistook the "By Constructing, Equipping And Furnishing A Multi-Purpose Facility, Including Among Other Amenities, Concession Facilities, Restrooms, Parking Facilities, Landscaping And Related Driveways And Roads, And Acquiring Real Estate And Interests Therein, Together With All Necessary And Related Appurtenances Thereto, And Declaring An Emergency" as work that was done for the Amphitheater. Turns out the first legislation was written to cover expenses for the Music Center.
Therefore, refering to $12.5 million for Recreation was technically correct, it wasn't my intention to lump Music Center money in with Aquatic Center money. Turns out my pre-meeting posting on the subject better characterized the amount of principle being borrowed and the re-write was unitentially less accurate. I hate inaccuracies. Unfortunately the lack of timely information provided as part of regular city meetings means these kinds of things aren't talked out in a timely manner which promotes the spread of misinformation.
The Music Center project manager started the meeting showing council some renderings (pictures) of some of the architectural features. I missed the absolute beginning of the presentation so I wasn't in the meeting when it was stated definitively but I gather from subsequent comments that the plan is to lower the floor below the natural surface. I believe this is being done to lower the noise impact both to the public and the music center. As one of our readers suggested the noise from the highway is a concern. The developers realize this as well and are planning to build a concrete barrier between the highway and the music center. This concrete barrier will be built with aesthetics in mind as well.
The acoustic engineer for the project went out to the PNC to do noise level measurements. From his calculations if there were nothing in between the Music Center and the nearest houses to the Music Center then the noise level from the Huber Height Music center would be about 70 to 75 decibels at their porches. This equates to about as noisy as people set their volume when they watch TV or a vacuum cleaner.
The request for qualifications for the building package was sent out and there were 5 respondents. All 5 respondents were considered qualified to bid on this portion of the project. The report by the project manager was that it was obvious that all 5 packages were prepared by qualified architects. An interesting point that came out in this discussion was that the insurance requirement the builder had to meet was $10 million. I was glad to here the project manager state that the RFQ was posted on Dodge and in the Plan Room. I was disappointed that it appears that none of the council members confirmed before hand the RFQ would be widely posted by asking for a list. Nor did any of them ask for a copy of any of the ads. To me advertising the RFQ seemed like an important aspect of the bidding procedure. Back in June it appeared that a good advertisement was important to at least one of the council members also. As a side note when the city decided to advertise the RFQ for the early site work one of the places they did this was on the city's website on the Music Center page. It appears as if they did not use this resource for the building package.
Another interesting item - the bid package is 150 pages long. Expect the bids to arrive the first week of September.
Good Sports is in the architectural design phase. There is no formal city / Good Sports agreement in place. Good Sports has not yet submitted a zoning permit application. Their private funding efforts are schedule to close in the next couple of weeks. Besides our project they are looking to raise enough capital to build 6 other projects.
Music Center There are five proposals being requested to start the design work on the music center. Opening the first couple and we see they are extensive documents that deserve more attention and their own write-up. Please open and review. I appreciate your posting of your review and thoughts. One of the first things I see is that the number of acres stated in the MKSK proposal is +/- 32 this is more than what we've seen previously.
MKSK Proposal - RE: Professional Design Services for ‘The Heights’ Design Standards and Huber Heights Music Center Schematic Design through Construction Administration. MKSK# c13518
I've broken out some of the Mar 14, 2013 Music Center presentation into easy viewing
Meeting notes:
The City is hiring Ken Conaway LLC as the project manager for the Music Center. The contract with Ken Conaway LLC is to provide up to 40 hours a week in project management services and additional time for an assistant. This business was created by Mr. Conaway. Mr. Conaway has worked with city council previously. He managed the construction of the Aquatic Center as an employee of 201 LLC. Mr. Conaway is also the owner of Dry Run LLC. The city just extended the $90,000 a year no bid contract they awarded to Dry Run LLC. This contract allows Dry Run LLC to manage the $65,000 of man hours the YMCA contributes to maintaining the landscaping around the Recreation Center in addition to the contracted award price. Mr. Conaway also speaks at council meetings as a representative of the Carriage Trails Developer and appears to still maintain an active role managing that effort.
The Music Center Project manager, Mr. Conaway, talked about the dynamics of the three main development companies that will be involved in the project: GBBN, MKSK and ME. Those dynamics are still being worked out. He also indicate prep work such as environmental studies will begin soon.
A draft budget for the Music Center project was available to council members at the meeting. This document was not handed out or in the read ahead. I'm guessing it won't be in the minutes either. There was no meaningful discussion on the budget.
- GoodSports Economic Development Agreement
City staff is in constant contact with GoodSports. Representatives of this company are suppose to travel to Huber next week to look at the site and meet with city staff. Expectation is this company will try to build at about the same aggressive schedule as the city. This is expected to result in better better deals for construction services. The company has also indicated they are talking with other associates about also bringing their businesses to the city.
Check this out for yourself! goodsportsenterprises.com Click on "About Us" then scroll down to "Executive Summary". This will appear on the left side of the page. This is a PDF file and has some interesting reading. Check out page 3; The Municipal Contributions. Any thoughts on this?
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Tom captured the minutes of the meeting with great detail. There was a lot of information and discussion on the subject of the Music Center. Council and staff have appeared to be doing there due diligence and even wanting to take additional steps for another Validation Study. This seems to make good sense for an outside party to validate much of the data already being collected in the other studies the city has requested.
I also thought Ms. Dudley had a good point like Tom mentioned about a certification to this companies work being provided as a product of the Validation Study.
My thought was to get projects very similar to the Music Center that this company CSL worked with and get with the city representatives, question them on how accurate the analysis was in the various areas they looked at. Ask these cities whether or not they feel the study was beneficial, how accurate were thier projection/forecasts, did they get the results as CSL thought they would.
Another area that I did not understand completely was how this project is to be funded. It has been stated that TIF money can be used and will be enough to fund the project. Tonight the comment about using bonds and grants as a funding method. These comments added some confusion to the funding issue.
I was glad to hear that staff wanted some additional time 30-45 days to continue to look into all areas of concern before making a decision, of course it will cost a bit more money which will be covered by money that is available for use and already budgeted ($40K max). There was also discussion of additional meetings for further discussions within various city committee meetings where the public is encouraged to attend and comment. Not sure how many folks attend these meetings, I would question the public awareness, but comments are being reported as mostly positive.
Go figure! I really wanted to be there tonight. I wanted to hear all this for myself. I have a ton of questions. I've contacted most outside venue mgrs that are within 3 hours of Dayton. I have some numbers questions for them. Have they really done their homework? At last month's meeting the sales pitch sounded like Oz was about to appear. It's not appearing as a "we the people" government anymore.
City Meeting
By Janell,
posted
I, for one, will be attending these meeting on a more regular basis!
I attended the admin meeting last night also and was surprised as to how far along the city is with going forward with this Music Center project. They have approved $100K to do their due diligence, have 3 contracts ready to be signed for various areas of the study being conducted, and an $18 million dollar price tag on the project. They were very pleased with the comments and thoughts from the 18 or so people who actually know something about this as they sit on these different committees within the city. Seems like a small number of people to decide for the balance of the community who will not have the opportunity to ask questions unless they happen to attend one of the three committee meetings. Look for more to come in the followup meetings and keep checking the council agenda items for this issue. I'm sure it will get interesting.
Comments
Award of the $12 million Building Package Sept 23, 2013
Here are the notes I used when I spoke to council. You can watch the discussion from the city's website. It is agenda item F. I haven't opened the video yet but I'd guess it was about halfway through.
Tonight we are going to vote whether we want to spend the largest portion of the cost to build the Music Center. Although it looks like we are fully committed because we have already spent $2.3 million on the land purchase and $2.4 million on preparing the site, it may be possible to recover most of that money if it turns out the Music Center concept is not feasible. However, after we get started on the building it will be impossible to make up for mistakes in planning. So I'm asking council to reflect on the wisdom of going forward when council hasn't demonstrated in public the feasibility of the project.
Because the city has not provided any in-depth public discussion about the feasibility of the Music Center, I recently asked the city to provide the reports that council used to decide we will be able to pay off the debt associated with the Recreational Complex and the Music Center. I was provided two documents concerning the financing and the Validation Study. These documents although never made public as part of an official city meeting or discussion make me wonder if council members can make a responsible decision on whether we as a city should go forward with the Music Center.
Specific concerns about the information that council appears to be using to justify the project include: Incomplete analysis of the revenue we expect from new business in "The Heights", dated information about the financing of Aquatic Center, an unrealistic expectation of being able to hold 6 festivals a year, a business plan the calls for directly competing with the Dayton Philharmonic by bringing in the Cincinnati Symphony 4 times a year, a marketing plan that implies we can fill the music center with just $2000 of advertising per event, and an expense expectation based on the city hiring all the management personnel even though it recommends a more costly outside management arrangement. Most interesting is that even though council is open about our design being based on the design for the PNC pavilion and that they hired the same contractor that built theirs to build ours, they have done a poor job in explaining the differences in the two projects that justify why our project costs $18 million while the Validation Report tells us the PNC was built for $6.5
The document addressing the Aquatic Center had specific information about the specific pieces of property that would be generating the taxes to pay off the Aquatic Center debt. For instance it tells us to expect Wal-mart to pay $239,000 worth of tax until 2015 and then $101,000 in tax after that. The document for the music center does not show that type of detail and it doesn't give any indication how the tax numbers were created.
The other big problem with the report the city gave me about the Music Center financing was it was still using data from Sept 2011 when the Recreational Complex computations were done. In that report they expected to finance up $6.8 million in 2011 at 4.5% interest. We know that they now intend to complete that financing in November of 2013, instead of $6.8 million they have $12.5 million of Recreational Complex debt to finance and we don't know the interest rate but we do know they have been climbing since April. On the bright side because they haven't been paying the debt the TIF money "on hand" is significantly higher than the $2 million they expected to start with in 2011. This should offset some of the problems caused by higher interest rates and almost twice the expected principle. However, without an updated report with real numbers it is impossible for council to know if we are on schedule to pay of the Aquatic Center and so it is impossible to make a responsible decision about the new debt for the Music Center.
Specific concerns from the Music Center validation center include an expectation that the city will be able to hold 6 music festivals a year where we sell 30,000, $15,00 tickets. In the Validation Report it tells us planning for each successful event can take more than a year. I've not seen any public discussion that shows the planning for next year's event have begun.
Looking at the Validation Plan we see they plan to bring the Cincinnati Symphony here 4 times a year to compete against the Dayton Philharmonic. Last year the city brought the Dayton Philharmonic to Huber Heights and more than half the available 800 seats went empty.
The Validation Study show the 6 festivals and 4 Local Events are suppose to bring in almost half the total number of people using the Music Center.
The report tells us to succeed will take aggressive marketing and also shows us that they intend on doing this with less than $2000 of event marketing per Music Center event. In contrast when the city brought in the Dayton Philharmonic they authorized $6000 for marketing that event.
The report tells us to hire a management company. Then it computes the cost of the Managing Director, Production & Operations Manager and 4 other positions as if they were going to be city employees. Cost to hire these same people using a private contractor could easily add $150,000 to the cost of managing the facility.
The Validation Study tells us the PNC Pavilion cost $6.5 million. We know the PNC didn't have to purchase property and they shared the cost of parking, restrooms and concession stands with Riverbend. Our facility also will have a better cosmetic appeal and a sound barrier between it and the highway. However, council has not taken the time to show the public how these differences add up to $12 million in additional cost.
Tonight we are going to vote on whether we should spend the largest portion of the Music Center cost and the information provided to the residents of Huber Heights does not show the project is feasible. I ask each council member to reflect on the vote they are about to cast. If they are aware of information that mitigates these concerns I ask that they provide it in an open public meeting. It they are unaware I ask that they defer a yes vote until a proper assessment is completed.
Correction to $12.5 million figure cited in council presentation
By Tom_McMasters posted September 25th 2013, 8:09 AMWhen I constructed the revision it was not my intention for the $12.5 million recreational complex number I cited to include money borrowed because of the Music Center. The city officially refers to the combination of the Aquatic Center and Eichelberger Amphitheater as the Recreational Complex. On April 22, 2013 the city passed "An Ordinance Providing For The Issuance And Sale Of Notes In The Maximum Principal Amount Of $4,500,000, In Anticipation Of The Issuance Of Bonds, For The Purpose Of Paying The Costs Of Improving The City's Municipal Recreation Facilities". They also passed "An Ordinance Providing For The Issuance And Sale Of Notes In The Maximum Principal Amount Of $8,020,000, In Anticipation Of The Issuance Of Bonds, For The Purpose Of Paying The Costs Of Improving The City's Municipal Recreation Facilities".
In the second piece of legislation it was obvious this was for the construction of the Aquatic Center because the agenda item description continues with "By Constructing, Equipping And Furnishing A Multi-Purpose Municipal Recreation Complex To Include Among Other Things An Aquatic Center, Athletic Playing Fields, Outdoor Amphitheater, Recreational Trails, Picnic Shelters, Playgrounds, Dog Park, And Related Facilities, Including The Acquisition Of Real Property And Interests Therein And Improving The Site Therefor, Together With All Driveways, Roads, Parking Facilities, And Other Necessary Appurtenances Thereto, And Declaring An Emergency".
In the first piece of legislation I mistook the "By Constructing, Equipping And Furnishing A Multi-Purpose Facility, Including Among Other Amenities, Concession Facilities, Restrooms, Parking Facilities, Landscaping And Related Driveways And Roads, And Acquiring Real Estate And Interests Therein, Together With All Necessary And Related Appurtenances Thereto, And Declaring An Emergency" as work that was done for the Amphitheater. Turns out the first legislation was written to cover expenses for the Music Center.
Therefore, refering to $12.5 million for Recreation was technically correct, it wasn't my intention to lump Music Center money in with Aquatic Center money. Turns out my pre-meeting posting on the subject better characterized the amount of principle being borrowed and the re-write was unitentially less accurate. I hate inaccuracies. Unfortunately the lack of timely information provided as part of regular city meetings means these kinds of things aren't talked out in a timely manner which promotes the spread of misinformation.
The Music Center project manager started the meeting showing council some renderings (pictures) of some of the architectural features. I missed the absolute beginning of the presentation so I wasn't in the meeting when it was stated definitively but I gather from subsequent comments that the plan is to lower the floor below the natural surface. I believe this is being done to lower the noise impact both to the public and the music center. As one of our readers suggested the noise from the highway is a concern. The developers realize this as well and are planning to build a concrete barrier between the highway and the music center. This concrete barrier will be built with aesthetics in mind as well.
The acoustic engineer for the project went out to the PNC to do noise level measurements. From his calculations if there were nothing in between the Music Center and the nearest houses to the Music Center then the noise level from the Huber Height Music center would be about 70 to 75 decibels at their porches. This equates to about as noisy as people set their volume when they watch TV or a vacuum cleaner.
The request for qualifications for the building package was sent out and there were 5 respondents. All 5 respondents were considered qualified to bid on this portion of the project. The report by the project manager was that it was obvious that all 5 packages were prepared by qualified architects. An interesting point that came out in this discussion was that the insurance requirement the builder had to meet was $10 million. I was glad to here the project manager state that the RFQ was posted on Dodge and in the Plan Room. I was disappointed that it appears that none of the council members confirmed before hand the RFQ would be widely posted by asking for a list. Nor did any of them ask for a copy of any of the ads. To me advertising the RFQ seemed like an important aspect of the bidding procedure. Back in June it appeared that a good advertisement was important to at least one of the council members also. As a side note when the city decided to advertise the RFQ for the early site work one of the places they did this was on the city's website on the Music Center page. It appears as if they did not use this resource for the building package.
Another interesting item - the bid package is 150 pages long. Expect the bids to arrive the first week of September.
Good Sports is in the architectural design phase. There is no formal city / Good Sports agreement in place. Good Sports has not yet submitted a zoning permit application. Their private funding efforts are schedule to close in the next couple of weeks. Besides our project they are looking to raise enough capital to build 6 other projects.
April 16, 2013 Administration Meeting agenda items.
Each of the proposals include expanded explanations of the services as well as fees and schedule.
Here is an April 12, 2013 DDN article:
Music center, fieldhouse plans moving along in Huber Heights
Last edit: by Tom_McMasters
Administration Committee meeting notes Mar 20, 2013
Meeting notes:
The City is hiring Ken Conaway LLC as the project manager for the Music Center. The contract with Ken Conaway LLC is to provide up to 40 hours a week in project management services and additional time for an assistant. This business was created by Mr. Conaway. Mr. Conaway has worked with city council previously. He managed the construction of the Aquatic Center as an employee of 201 LLC. Mr. Conaway is also the owner of Dry Run LLC. The city just extended the $90,000 a year no bid contract they awarded to Dry Run LLC. This contract allows Dry Run LLC to manage the $65,000 of man hours the YMCA contributes to maintaining the landscaping around the Recreation Center in addition to the contracted award price. Mr. Conaway also speaks at council meetings as a representative of the Carriage Trails Developer and appears to still maintain an active role managing that effort.
The Music Center Project manager, Mr. Conaway, talked about the dynamics of the three main development companies that will be involved in the project: GBBN, MKSK and ME. Those dynamics are still being worked out. He also indicate prep work such as environmental studies will begin soon.
A draft budget for the Music Center project was available to council members at the meeting. This document was not handed out or in the read ahead. I'm guessing it won't be in the minutes either. There was no meaningful discussion on the budget.
- GoodSports Economic Development Agreement
Last edit: by Thomas McMasters
goodsportsenterprises.com
Click on "About Us" then scroll down to "Executive Summary". This will appear on the left side of the page. This is a PDF file and has some interesting reading. Check out page 3; The Municipal Contributions. Any thoughts on this?
ERROR: A link was posted here (url tag, http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local/entertainment-venues-compete-for-dollars/nW6n8/) but it appears to be a broken link.
Entertainment venues compete for dollarsMajor Presentation Mar 5th
Council Meeting 22 Jan. 13
I also thought Ms. Dudley had a good point like Tom mentioned about a certification to this companies work being provided as a product of the Validation Study.
My thought was to get projects very similar to the Music Center that this company CSL worked with and get with the city representatives, question them on how accurate the analysis was in the various areas they looked at. Ask these cities whether or not they feel the study was beneficial, how accurate were thier projection/forecasts, did they get the results as CSL thought they would.
Another area that I did not understand completely was how this project is to be funded. It has been stated that TIF money can be used and will be enough to fund the project. Tonight the comment about using bonds and grants as a funding method. These comments added some confusion to the funding issue.
I was glad to hear that staff wanted some additional time 30-45 days to continue to look into all areas of concern before making a decision, of course it will cost a bit more money which will be covered by money that is available for use and already budgeted ($40K max). There was also discussion of additional meetings for further discussions within various city committee meetings where the public is encouraged to attend and comment. Not sure how many folks attend these meetings, I would question the public awareness, but comments are being reported as mostly positive.
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