Lakewood Park and Pennisula Presentation

[Danielle Masters]

Savannah's ideas weren't just about the Peninsula and the fact that Council shelved it so quickly is of concern to me.

I was really hoping for a better response from council, but it just seems that those leading our city refuse to think outside of the box. The master plan for Lakewood park that exists now is just plain dull. The space isn't used well and I hope that maybe the city will consider changing it.

Is there any online version of the already proposed and accepted park plan?

http://www.ci.lakewood.oh.us/citynews_lakefront.html

Phil, this is what I found on the city website. The only change seems to be adding a boardwalk, which would be nice but a beach would really make Lakewood great.

[Lynn Farris]

Savannah did take into account the new plan for Lakewood. One of the big advantages was Councilman Fitzgerald and his group of citizens were able to work with then St. Augustines to secure the right away so that the road that she has going to the Peninsula was possible.

I really had a different take on council. I'm impressed by this council. (I'm not normally the crazy optimist either. ) They paid attention and while they didn't ask tons of questions at the time, sometimes ideas need to percolate a while. She gave each of them books to review. She is willing and able to answer questions and if she can't answer them, she has access to a big firm of architects, planners and landscape architects who are familiar with this type of development and she can get the answer.

I think they will do something. In fact, I thought Councilman Demro was looking at revising the parking to incorporate the farmers market soon.

I also would not be surprised if Councilwoman Antonio was looking into grants for the Wind farm.

We have several forward thinking council people out there and lots of forward thinking citizens that will encourage the council to seriously consider some if not all of the ideas.

[Charyn Varkonyi]

Hi All -

I am back with a number that perplexes me, and that is the 55 mil.

I dint know where that number came from, or what is included in that price tag, but I have been poking my head around and discovered that the much mentioned Legacy Village cost approximately 130 million for only 615,000 square feet.

Now I am realistic enough to know that there is no way to get a down-to-the-penny true estimate of cost; however, before we can play ball - we need to know AT LEAST what ballpark we will be playing in.

I am off to see what I can dredge up....

Peace,
~Charyn

[Lynn Farris]

I like that dredge up.

Normally the cost that a city/government agency assists a little with is the cost to prep the land so that we can compete with "green fields".

In most inner ring suburbs, this is the cost associated with purchasing homes/buildings, demolishing them and addressing any environmental issues as well as assisting with the infrastructure.

In this case it is preparing the land for the peninsula - not building the homes.

The way this cost was developed was using the Cleveland figures for doing a similar development and resizing it.

Perhaps the cost you were looking at for Legacy Village was the constrruction costs? This cost is normally born by the developer.

[Charyn Varkonyi]

Thanks Lynn!

So I believe there are actually two distinct issues to look at:

1) What the city must do, pay, approve and what will be received as a result and

2) What a developer must do, pay, etc and what they will receive as a result.

We have been discussing this as a whole; however, from your response, I have the impression that the bulk of the city's investment/involvement stops at the grass line and from there is falls upon the developers. (ok - so it is an over-generalization - but you probably get my thoughts


So we would need to think about this from their point of view because we would, in fact, need to court such companies in order to convince them to invest such a substantial amount of capital.

[Lynn Farris]

You got it.

But the beauty of the plan is that this is the land that developers want.

Savannah and the partners in the planning/architectural/landscape architectural firm she works for are working to find responsible and capable developers currently.

[Ed FitzGerald]

Just a few quick observations.

Regarding the water intake idea, former Councilman Ed Graham proposed this many years ago. A study was done at the time, as I recall, which claimed it was not economically feasible. However, it may be time to dust off the old plans and take a renewed look at this issue in tandem with other West Shore communities. It also doesn't hurt our negotiating position with the City of Cleveland vis a vis the water rates they charge us!

As to a windfarm, the City of Cleveland has been exploring its feasibility. I've heard preliminary results haven't been encouraging, but again, we ought to take a look at it. There are some proposals in Congress which would subsidize this kind of "clean" power, so it makes sense to be poised to take advantage of it.

I enjoyed the presentation, and I think it has some merit. Since 2000, I have periodically convened a "Lakefront Task Force" made up of city officials and interested citizens. As Lynn Farris mentioned, this lead to the the tentative agreement with the Sisters of Charity, and grants of significant state money for our lakefront improvements. We haven't met in a while, but I would be happy to re-convene this ad hoc group to mull over this proposal. It's open to everyone, by the way.

While we're at it, I'd like to see more in-depth information on the proposal that former Cleveland Planning Director Chris Ronayne proposed a while back. It included a plan for an island just off-shore. Dick Feagler mocked it as "Ronayne's Island" and I know its easy to dismiss these things as unrealistic, but we shouldn't limit our vision in the early stages.

Finally, and this may seem contradictory, I think the community-including me- has spent a great deal of our time and effort on Lakewood Park. I just would like to throw a challenge out there to expand/improve our other parks with equal creativity.

[Charyn Varkonyi]

Good afternoon everyone!

I had couple more thoughts I wanted to share as we explore the Peninsula Plan:

First:
I still have grave concerns about the numbers that are being tossed around. As I understand it, we took a figure from Cleveland’s proposal and reduced it via a straight percentage based upon the size of the two projects. This would assume that all of the costs associated with the Cleveland project were variable and would be reduced when applied to a project of a smaller size; however, considering the type of project, I find that to be extremely unlikely. It is VERY conceivable that this could cost 100M, 125M, 150M, etc., for the creation of the peninsula alone. This is critical information to have even at this early start in the discussion. Does anyone have any ideas about how we can get a better rough estimate of cost?

Second:
The number that was proposed as revenue are based on some assumptions that I feel should be challenged. The income revenue is calculated using a salary base of 200K and full occupancy. I could argue on that salary base; however, I believe that it would be more pragmatic for early stage discussions to assume a 10% vacancy rate once the project is fully completed to account for any variations and to assume a phase by phase completion.

The real estate tax assumed 1.25M per housing unit, which is likely to be inflated. There needs to be a more concrete estimate of this number, but more importantly, there needs to be an assessment of the impact on the property value of other lakefront property as well.

Most Lakefront property is sold because it IS lakefront, because people want to look out at the boats on the lake. It is possible that the creation of an island in the middle of this view could drive the prices of existing housing down and drive some potential homeowners to the outlying suburbs where there will be a better lake view. I have been to Miami and, quite frankly, I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of the island – not so pretty.

Ditto for property values where the wind farm would be in view – I don’t know the impact but, again, not something I would want to look at everyday in my 1.25 million dollar home.

Third:
With the creation of a beach comes traffic, lots of traffic. There is already so much concern about the overuse of the park, this would increase that use tremendously. Additionally, there would be an impact on all of the area residences that would then be subject to the increased flow. What is the potential impact?

Fourth:
What is the cost of ongoing maintenance in the various parts of this project and who/what entity will be responsible for them? As Joan mentioned, what is the cost of the debt service? What percentage of Lakewood citizens will DIRECTLY benefit from this?

We certainly cannot say that there will be a simple two years to return the investment – it IS more complicated than that and we need to take that reality pill and examine those complications if we really want these ideas to grow. I also appreciate and beleive that looking at relevant portions of the plan can certainly benefit the city as well and should never be discounted.

Peace,
~Charyn

[Phil Florian]

First, Ms. Masters, thanks for posting that link. I looked at it and it wasn't too bad but nothing too inspiring. I still like Savannah's a lot better (in particular to the park itself, since both include beach and boardwalks nearer to the water).

Thanks for posting, Mr. Fitzgerald. I totally agree with the idea of looking at all the parks. As I noted earlier I believe that Madison Park has more direct impact on Lakewood Citizens than Lakewood Park, though LP would pull in more outsiders. Does Lakewood benefit from all those guests? How do we take advantage of that? Anyway, I think the idea of bringing some folks together to talk about the shoreline again is a good idea, especially since there is apparently some money and plans to move forward with a project in the pipeline. Maybe before deals are set in stone it might be nice to get some more input on how it is spent. I assume Jim will post such a meeting prominently on the front of the Forum.

[Donald Farris]

Hi,
Upon close review several corrections have been made. One element of our County property taxes I was unsure of (and am still – Does anyone know the level of assessment on newly constructed residential property in Lakewood?) is the level of assessment. I thought on initial creation the assessed value would equal the market/purchase price. Upon close scrutiny, I see newer property in the county is given the same level of assessment as older property. For Cuyahoga County it appears our level of assessment is slightly more than 35%. So, I reworked the numbers with that level of assessment (until someone tells me otherwise). You can check the figures I used in my calculations with your property tax bill.

Therefore, here are the corrected numbers:
Annual additional City revenue from Income taxes: $ 420,000
Annual additional City revenue from property taxes: $ 1,797,075
Total annual additional City revenue: $ 2,217,075
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annual additional School revenue from property taxes: $ 5,211,518
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annual additional Library revenue from property taxes: $ 269,561
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Annual additional County revenues from property taxes: $ 1,707,221
============================================
Total annual additional revenues $ 8,985,375
============================================



This would not take into account any support needed to construct the project via TIFs or other means.

Assumptions:

1). Average family income of new residents $ 200,000.
2). City income tax 1.5%
3). 140 new families living on the project
4). Average property value $1.25 million for each home
5). 140 new homes on project
6). Total property tax rate 14.67% (Not 13.7667%)
(Calculated from property taxes, it’s the same for everyone and on property tax web site)
7). Property tax split up: City 20% School 58% Library 3% County 19%
8 ). In Cuyahoga County, the Level of Assessment is 35%. Look at your property on the web site. See: http://auditor.cuyahogacounty.us/repi/default.asp

On property tax no HB 920 reduction since all new property

Income: $ 200,000 * 140 = $ 28,000,000 * 1.5% = $ 420,000 per yr City income tax. These residents will need to make enough to afford the mortgage. I worked backwards to get this number.

Property:
Average Market value = $ 1,250,000
Assessed Value = Market Value * level of assessment = $ 1,250,000 * .35 = $ 437,500 avg. assessed value
$ 437,500 * 140 units = $ 61,250,000* 14.67% = $ 8,985,375 per yr property taxes to be split

City cut (20%) = $ 1,797,075
School cut (58%) = $ 5,211,518
Library cut (3%) = $ 269,561
County cut (19%) = $ 1,707,221

=============================================

Plus, we can get the Lakewood Park fixed up by the developer and we get revenues from the marina. Also, keep in mind there would be no lose of revenues from removing existing properties that are currently paying property taxes.

This would make the ROI = $ 50,000,000 / $ 8,985,375 a year = 5.6 years.

Sorry for the earlier mistake. I will revise those posts.

[Joan Roberts]

It seems to me that the cool reaction from council is to be expected, and at this point, I'm not sure I can blame them.
The issues facing city government right now prosaic ones, time and resources are limited, and as I've said before, I would guess that most residents are more concerned about maintaining the land that exists now before we talk about creating new land.
But isn't there an ad hoc way to see if this idea has any legs at all? It seems that the type of developers who would be involved in something like this could be easily identified, general ballpark costs could be determined (I'm with Charyn, my gut feeling is that it's a lot more than $55 million),realtors could give us expert estimates on the number and value of these.
Developers could also tell us whether the potential warrants more or less public commitment.
My point is that a few days of phone calls and "elevator pitches" could determine whether it's worth finding $100,000 for a true feasibility study, or whether it's a total fantasy.
It sounds like a case for playing "six degrees of separation." Surely someone in Lakewood knows someone who knows someone who knows the people who can get real answers.
The point here is that few of us posting here have the technical expertise to make any rational judgment. The idea is too promising to dismiss but what do we do to take it beyond the "let's put on a show in the barn" stage?