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Originally Posted by LMich
Building in Ann Arbor is like pulling teeth. That they've even got this far with such a controversial project is amazing. There are ones that don't require any funky financing that get held up for years over next to nothing.
I'm still not getting the issue about the bonds, though, and what they mean by tax advantaged. Someone want to hash out this legalese for me?
It's kind of crazy, because for whatever reason I thought the Library Lot was a decades old garage, but it looks like it's only a few years old.
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Yea, the Library Lot used to be a surface parking lot but was rebuilt as an underground parking garage in 2012. It's apparently 4 floors of parking and has over 700 parking spaces. The foundations of the parking garage allow for a 20 floor building to be built on top of it though the NIMBYs would prefer a park.
The bonds issue is seemingly about the parking garage which of course was built and is owned by the city. The city isn't selling the garage to the developers but development rights to build on top of the garage. In return, the developers pay $10 million dollars to lease about 200 parking spaces (in addition to paying taxes and paying for construction like any other private development).
The NIMBYs are arguing that essentially the city built the parking garage for developers to use which meant that public money was used to fund a private investment which then would mean the city owes taxes on that parking garage. However, the IRS already said that this isn't the case and that the deal with Core Spaces can go through with no problem.