August 13, 2014
Rio Nuevo Hears Arena Lot Presentations
At its August 12th Special Meeting, the Rio Nuevo Board heard oral presentations from Nor-Generations, LLC (“Nor-Gen”) and Peach Properties HM, Inc. (“Peach”) on the acquisition of and development of the District’s “Arena Lot”; 8.5 acres of land adjacent to the freeway at Congress.
Nor-Gen and Peach each outlined their respective proposals, discussed their respective development plans, the attendant economic benefits and answered questions from the Board.
Each proposal contemplates construction of a hotel, residential, commercial, parking and retail space on the site. The specific proposals can be viewed at www.rioneuvo.org.
On a 3-2 vote, the Board elected to take a few days to turn the required score sheets in to the RFP Administrator, rather than to score the proposals live, after a 3 hour meeting. Mr. Ritchie did not attend the meeting because of declared conflict and Mr. Hill was absent due to illness. Messrs. Moore and Mr. McCusker voted against delaying the scoring. The deadline for each participating Board member to submit his/her score of the presentations is Monday, August 18th at 5:00 PM.
Pursuant to the terms of the RFP, these presentation scores will be combined with the previous proposal scores to determine the highest ranked proposer. At its next meeting, the Board will decide upon the next step in the procurement process.
“We have an opportunity to create a world class entrance to our new downtown and by partnering with private developers, we can create a $100,000,000 development using very little taxpayer dollars.” Fletcher McCusker, Rio Nuevo Chairman.
In other action, the Board approved the responsive and responsible bid for the new electronic, high-definition scoreboards that will be added to the TCC Arena.