Recommendation to declare the City-owned property located at 6101-6141 Atlantic Avenue, Assessor Parcel Number 7125-036-900 (Subject Property) as surplus, authorize City Manager, or designee, to execute any and all documents necessary, including a Purchase and Sale Agreement, with Amusement Industry, Inc. (Buyer) for the sale of the Subject Property in the amount of $655,578, and accept Categorical Exemption CE 16-273.  (District 9)
Great names. Congratulations. We're going to have just had a request to quickly hear item 19 and then we're going to go to 14. A report from Economic and Property Development Recommendation to declare the city owned property located at 60136141 Atlantic Avenue as surplus and authorize the city manager to execute all documents necessary with amusement industry for the sale of the subject property in the amount of $655,000. District nine. Vice Mayor Richardson. Proud to support this. Encourage my colleague support. This is the first development project to move forward in District nine North Long Beach. Thanks. Councilman Mongo. I think this is a great idea. Thanks for any public comment on this item. Please come forward. Mayor Garcia. City Council Members Jim McCabe. Many redevelopment properties have been sold in the city of Long Beach for less than the highest bidder, and I think that's sometimes justified. However, when that's done, I've looked at quite a number of them on the agendas. The City Council is never told what the highest bidder is in this. This case really has the potential, and I'm not saying it exists, but potential for a kind of corruption that the citizens should not tolerate. The property was appraised for a value of $1.2 million. The management proposes to sell for about half of that to the developer that has left the property next to it. Go derelict. How can the best use and the best sale of this property be to a property owner who has let this happen to his property? And when we're getting less than half the appraised value. I challenge any council member here. To ask, and almost certainly this won't happen. But I challenge them anyway. I challenge someone to ask what the highest bidder, what the highest bid rather was, how much was bid for this property? The City Council is in no position to make an informed decision on any of these sales. If it doesn't know what the highest bidder was, no well-run organization would operate that way. I. Earnestly ask you to consider this advice. As I've always said, my view of a council member is job is to ask questions. This is not a council, I think, renowned for that, but it does happen. Someone ask how much the high bid was. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any other public comment? Seeing no other public comment. Go back to the council. Vice Mayor Richardson. Sure. I just want staff to just walk us through a little bit of this project as brief as you can. Sure. I'll turn it over to Catherine. McDermott, who is our interim director of economic development and Property Services. Thank you, mayor and council members. I'll just go through this really quickly. This is just a. Map of the. Property, both the city owned property, which is vacant and the privately owned property. The property to be sold was categorized as future development in the long range property management plan, included in the guiding principles of that plan or disposition strategies, which include providing priority opportunities for acquisition and development to adjoining landowners, tenants and other businesses and business owners within the Redevelopment Project area. Accordingly, we solicited an offer from the adjoining owner Amusement Industry Inc, more commonly known as Westland Development, which would include development of the city's property as well as redevelopment of his owned property. The purchase price is $655,578. It is less than the fair market value of the property. However, as contemplated by the long range property management plan, it's an opportunity for us to take an under-performing retail center owned by an adjacent property owner and make it more compelling. The development plan includes 10,610 square feet of new office space, retail and restaurant space, as well as new community open space. So we are asking the council's approval of this purchase and sale. Thank you. So I'll just say what? What's probably most special about this project is that the city only owns one half of the block and the adjoining property owner has come forth and is willing to make deep, dramatic improvements, creating a full city block of development. No, no other project do we have that type of leveraging in our redevelopment properties to to now we will have a full city block of development, signalized intersections, amenities that we simply do not have in North Long Beach. And I'm really excited about this project end to end. And what I would say is I don't there was us, you know, there was community engagement and community meeting here where the residents came to the table, talked about their highest and best use and needs for this project. And I am I am just, you know, having, you know, been a part of the city family for almost seven years. I've never seen anyone take this type of development approach in North Lobby. So I stand behind this wholeheartedly and I encourage you to ask some better questions. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. There's a motion and a second. Please cast your votes.