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City Council Meeting Minutes July 24, 2001 Page 7 I and traffic. He added that Ehlers captured that type of information and would be able to include that as 2 part of the evaluation criteria. 3 Mr. Prosser stated that the end result is a report with the various development proposals and the 4 evaluation. He added that Ehlers uniformly does not provide a recommendation to the City. He added 5 that they feel it is much more important that the City looks at the information and makes a selection. 6 Mr. Prosser stated that it was not unusual to segment the project, and look at multiple developers for 7 different parts of the project. He added that they recommend that the City narrows the field and invites s the developers back to make presentations to them before the City makes a selection. Mr. Prosser 9 stated that even after they make that selection, they are only entering into the Preliminary Development 10 Phase which allows the developers to provide a little more detail in all of the areas. I t Mr. Prosser indicated that once the developer and City Staff are comfortable, Ehlers recommends that 12 they go to the community to gather feedback on the proposal before the formal presentation for 13 consideration for the Final Development Stage. Mr. Prosser indicated that the Final Development 14 Stage includes negotiating issues such as land use, and any needs for financial assistance. 15 Mr. Prosser indicated that one of the chief concerns that a community has over TIF Fund usage is *6 whether the developer really needs that level of assistance, or not. He stated that Ehlers would provide 17 them with a Perform Analysis which would provide an examination of the actual financial need along 18 with a recommendation. 19 Mr. Prosser continued with the next step, the financial gap. He stated that the need is bigger than they 20 thought. He added that when they first looked at this project, a very rough estimate revealed a cost of 21 $33,000,000, with a gap of$2,300,000-$2,500,000, which is very manageable. 22 Mr. Prosser indicated that the legislature changed that gap to $12,000,000. He added that the 23 feasibility of the project needs to be determined by the City. Mr. Prosser stated that the fundamental 24 question is if accepting the status quo was an option. He continued that, if the City is comfortable with 25 the option to do nothing, then that needs to be looked at. He added that, if it is not an option, then he 26 believed that the gap was something that can be managed. 27 Mr. Prosser stated that one way to fill the gap was to look at outside funding. He added that another 28 way to close the gap was to look at staging the project where they would not need to acquire all the 29 land at one time. He identified a third way to lessen the gap as trying to incorporate existing businesses 30 into the development. 31In summary, Mr. Prosser acknowledged the significant challenges, and added that it is the challenges 02 that make the need for the project to happen.