Major East Village project faces no competition
Joel Aschbrenner
jaschbrenn@dmreg.com
A month and a tense City Council meeting later, it looks like the team lead by local businessman Jim Cownie will develop an East Village parking lot after all.
Cownie's team of real estate developers had laid out a plan to build a parking, apartment, office and retail complex on the east side of City Hall. It would fill one of the biggest blank spots in the East Village. Back-of-the-envelope math put the price tag around $60 million.
But when the developers took the plan to the City Council in May, Hubbell Realty CEO Rick Tollakson interjected. Tollakson said the city should take proposals from other developers instead of selling a prime piece of real estate like the 2.3-acre City Hall lot to the first developer who comes along.
In response, the City Council said it would open the process and would give other developers until June 12 to submit proposals for the site.
No other proposals were submitted.
So on Monday, the City Council is scheduled to vote on whether to move ahead with Cownie's project. Cownie's team includes businessman Bill Knapp and developers Jake Christensen and Tim Rypma, both veterans of East Village real estate projects.
Tollakson said his staff was too busy to take on a project like developing the City Hall lot. And he said it looked like a difficult job to finance considering a large portion of the project would have to be dedicated to parking.
Asked why he requested other developers be allowed to submit proposals if he didn't have a plan for developing the lot, Tollakson said he thought the process would be more open and transparent that way.
"I think when you have large, strategic pieces of property like that, it's good to open things up," he said.
Rypma said the project is still on track and construction is slated to begin in spring 2016.