Selecting a Development Team for the West Midway Project and Authorize the City Manager to Negotiate and Execute an Exclusive Right to Negotiate Agreement (ENA) with the Selected Development Team.  (Base Reuse 819099)
Hi. Selecting a development team for the West Midway Project and authorize the city manager to negotiate and execute an exclusive negotiation. Right. To negotiate agreement. Sorry. With Selected Development team. Okay. Good evening. Good evening. We're looking for the CliffsNotes. Version of the statue is, um, let's see. We're here tonight to recommend that you select the development team for the West Midway Project and that you authorize the city manager to execute an exclusive negotiation agreement with selected development team. Um, you familiar with the area of the map and exhibit one? And the process has basically been, uh, we came here about a year ago, July 10th, you authorized the RFQ, we've received seven qualified proposals. And in February you narrow the field down to two finalists, alameda point and Jamestown. Cypress Equity Investments. Uh, have some members Odion de sag. They're appointed to a subcommittee to develop supplemental questions for staff intended to gain more information about the finalists. Um, between March 6th and March, uh, May 6th, the two finalists, Alameda Point Partners and Jamestown. I requested additional time to explore potential partnership to develop West Midway and submitted responses in supplemental questions. On May 21st, Jamestown withdrew the developer selection process due to uncertainty about the viability of a commercial development. Given the phasing and increased costs of infrastructure with the withdrawal of Jamestown CEI, there are few alternatives that council can take tonight in selecting a development team. One Council could select AP as the remaining finalists shortlisted by council, and they have completed the supplemental questions. Another alternative is to reconsider. Brookfield, Brookfield Residential and or Telis Council could confirm that there is they are still interested based on their original submittal and then require them to respond to the supplemental questions . Another alternative is to reinstate the RFQ process, which would take about 6 to 9 months before coming back to council for a final selection. Um, so staff's recommendation of council is to select a development team for West Midway and authorize, um, execution of it. I will say that each of the development teams has a representative here to speak to any questions you might have. And that concludes my presentation. I'd be happy to answer your questions. Thank you. Nice work. Any clarifying questions on the separate? I want to just hasten to thank my colleagues, Councilmember Odie and Councilmember De. So you did a nice job on the questions that were posed to the finalists, so thank you for for your work on that subcommittee. So we go ahead and here are public speakers and then have our deliberations. Okay, let's do that. And so I think we've said 2 minutes per public. Speaker So go ahead, Madam Clerk. Okay. Karen Bay, Joe Ernst, Doug Biggs and Bruce Starkman. Good evening, Buttermere City Council Staff. So it's been more than two years since the Main Street neighborhood specific plan was approved. It's been a year since CRF two was issued. We had four developers that were shortlisted and then we narrowed it down to two. One of those developers, James Town, backed out and said, We're left with a two point partners. I think it's time to move forward and make a decision. And I'm here to support our point partners and let them choose a partner if they so desire to choose a partner. We've been through this before where we selected a partner for someone and it didn't work. And so I think AP Partners has earned the project at this point. They've been vetted. Are their financially committed? They have a great vision for the project. They've done their due diligence. They know the project site. They have a great construction team that's ready to go. And I think that there's benefit by having sort of a this master developer that has a vision so that we don't have a sort of a hodgepodge type of project with people, developers with different visions. I think there's a great benefit to having them move forward with the Main Street Development Project. So I urge you to select Alameda Point Park. Nice for the Main Street Project. Thank you. Thank you, Ms.. Bay. I just. Mayor Ashcraft, members of the council. I'm Joe Ernst with Alameda Point Partners. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I'll try to make this quick. I'm happy to be here and talk about this because I do as I've mentioned to many before, I do believe we bring a lot to the table here. Certainty. I think we can deliver with shorter time frames. We've already gone through the process of negotiating DDA documents, etc. with the city. We have a lot of knowledge and a lot of experience in working with the various systems that agencies issues, economies. We know cost here is critical and we have with our phase one work site A, we can bring economies with that work. Vision, I believe our vision for the project is most consistent with with delivering reshape, which is so critical. But also the other objectives that we've talked about for years jobs, social impact, trip generation, transit development and reduction of trips. But I want to address, most importantly, you know, one of your big concerns. One we respect. And that's the issue of diversity. I appreciate the questions about how do we mitigate risk, be comfortable. You know, we know what gets funded. I think all of the developers in this room know that a well-designed, thoughtful project that has community support, that will pencil and then is delivered by an experienced operator, you know, we all go through whether we have our own capital or we work with third parties. It's a very efficient market we go through. We have fiduciary responsibilities to investors, independent boards. So at the end of the day, you know, projects that get funded are those that pencil and have experienced operators who've demonstrated track record. You know, we went through that with City. We ran into issues in 2016. All right. Thank you. 2 minutes. Okay. Next, I see Doug Biggs. Good evening, Madam Mayor. Members of the City Council. My name's Doug Biggs, executive director of the Alameda Point Collaborative. And speaking here on behalf of the Reshape Collaborative Partners. You want to get out of here before midnight? We want to get out of this process before the end of the year. First and foremost, take the idea of an RFP off the table. That is just untenable. There is a lot of funding coming down the pike now for housing and we need to take advantage of it and we need to be ready to do this. And lengthy delays in selecting the metro developer for the Main Street project will severely impact that it's time to move forward. We early on met with all four partners. We determined that all four are capable of fully capable of of doing the work. We have full faith in them. We've enjoyed working with and meeting with each of them throughout the process. You have a process you embarked on last year that has resulted in having one, one, one developer standing tonight. And you either need to move forward on that or, you know, if you can do it without delays, you could do the questionnaire process as long as it's a very quick turnaround. But we you know, you set a process in motion that's resulted in where you're at tonight. There's rationale for finishing that out. There is if you feel like you need to do other vetting. I think there's some rationale for doing the questionnaire. We're not going to tell you which route to go. That's why you're sitting up there. But please don't do a process that's going to delay moving forward on this. Thank you. Thank you. And Bruce Dorfman, listen next. Speaker. Yes, Mr. Dorfman. Good evening. I was hoping to keep it short and basically second, everything my partner Joe earned said, but he didn't get through all his points. So I'd just like to restate what we've said before, that we think that we can offer greater certainty, shorter timeframes and lower costs by moving forward. We have a DDA that we relatively recently negotiated with the city. We know the pricing for doing the work out there. We've completed the physical due diligence and understand the constraints. We have good working relationships that have been developed over the years with the city and related agencies, and we're prepared to execute. Phase one, as we discussed at the groundbreaking of BLOCK Eight last week, is going quite well now that we're out of the rainy season. And we even though we've incurred, I think it was close to 70 days of rain and weather delay, we've gotten to a very important point been the 50% completion. And frankly, the second 50% of this work we think is going to go much quicker. So we are very interested in moving forward and just getting to one of Joe's points about the diversity aspect. On phase one of site, we had six different development parcels. We have sold three of those to different developers, and diversity has occurred that way. We're looking at moving forward with phase two. We're currently processing the vesting, tentative map and the infrastructure improvements that will be in front of you later on this year for review. And consequently, I think that being able to roll right into West Midway is appropriate and frankly, given the neighbor neighboring. Thank you, Mr. Dorfman. Approvals. Thank you. Okay. So I'm going to close public comment. Okay. Counsel comment. Who wants to start Councilmember Odie? Sure. I'll go first and I appreciate the thanks on the questionnaire. And you were. Very helpful. To work with my colleague and I also appreciate the answers. And I think they were frank. They were honest. And, you know, one of the things I learned in this job is that, you know, developments don't always take as fast as you wish. We wish we could have that housing open today. But the mayor and I were there. Was it last week? Last week at the at the building aid. And just to know that we were standing there where half of the infrastructure that we didn't have that was basically half of the cost of the project was basically from the city's perspective it was in. So I don't see any reason why we had this discussion a while back where we narrowed it to two. I mean, in an ideal world, the partnership had a lot of appeal, but one dropped out. So I mean, the point of narrowing it is, you know, you narrow it and then you go, you know, with who you have. So I trust AP to get this done. They've had shovels in the ground. They know what's under there and they know what to do. And I don't see any reason why we would change horses, you know, right now and start the process over or even ask others to do the questionnaire, because this is the direction of the council from a while ago. And, you know, I'm perfectly comfortable. And I do want to thank Staff Michel and Debi for all your hard work on this. Thank you, Councilmember Dandelion Councilmember Desai. Oh, thank you. Thank you also for your kind comments. Much appreciated, in my opinion. The process worked. You know, we started out with a multitude of developers through the request for a qualification process, and then it came down to two. It was actually three because because one of them was like on the bubble. And then so and then we came down to the two of Jamestown and, and AP, but Jamestown, you know, fell by the wayside. And so Alameda Point Partners is and we're not backing into app. This is a developer who has proven themselves and also I have always appreciated the substantial commitments that they've made through the DDA Shell shuttles running on a on a particular time frame. The amount of investments in in bus rapid transit and investments in the ferry terminal set are not to talk about not to mention the infrastructure dollars that that had would go down. So I'm satisfied with moving forward with staff's recommendation, with selecting a winner for the for the West Midway Project and that being AP, I appreciate the other developers who are here especially could tell us I appreciate the work that you guys have done in Bayport and also in Alameda Landing. But several months ago I think it was Jamestown. And Jamestown is in here. So. So there you have it. Thank you, Councilmember. You, Vice Mayor, next week. Hmm. So I think when we heard this in January, anyway, whenever we heard this, we chose to we had a we had we kind of went with a a known quantity and a new in a in a new entity this year. And I think at that meeting, I was definitely in the eye nervous about putting all our eggs in one basket. I did. I will disclose that. And I did meet Mr. EARNEST last week briefly, and I don't think I said anything different than I'm going to say right now. If there was a you know, I think if there was somebody that I would trust to put our eggs in one basket, I said this back in February as well. They do have a history of delivering, you know, in a tough market where we've watched a number of other development entities walk away, come back and ask us to reduce their things so they can sell to somebody else, etc.. You know, I'll be interested to see where everybody else is. But I do agree with with Councilmember Hardy that we started a process. We chose two people at the end of the day, not because we chose we ended up with one of those people, but that there is something that to suggest that maybe we shouldn't walk away from that process. Thank you, Councilman Rivera. I think my concerns are around question three regarding the do you foresee anything that could cause delays in completing the infrastructure for Reshape and the West Midway development? As I expressed at our previous meeting on this, you know, my concern is about making sure that these affordable units are able to come online and that, um, that there aren't delays to this. And in particular, one of the concerns that I have is about the overall number of units and the density and what that could mean to the rest of Alameda point. And, you know, I think one of the things and I'm reading the response here and I and I appreciate the acknowledgment that there's a number of different things that could cause delays to the build out of infrastructure. But I am I am concerned about the timing of different units coming on to the market and what the the total number of units are going to be. So I don't know. You know, if there's if we could get kind of a. Do you have a question you wanted to ask? We help bring them back up. Yeah. Okay. Could I have Mr. Dorfman and Mr. Ernst to approach the podium, if you would, please? This is my day for just putting people on the spot. But, hey, here they are, the applicants. Okay, because I think I. And in my notes, I actually like that same question. Okay. So if. You could ask away, would you if. You could answer that question. The question being number of units being delivered at any one time. Mm hmm. So if it is a concern, if there are too many of the same type of units being delivered at any. One, I was just. If you were speaking to the microphone, we could all hear you. You know, that there would be a concern if there's too many of the same kind of units being delivered to Mark at any one time. So that will be something knowing what we're doing with phase one today, phase two safety as we think about the product type for West Midway, that we have the ability to manage that and not create something that's going to compete with one another and jeopardize the project. And how, you know, in terms of your plan for the number of units that you see coming on for this, could you talk about that for this phase or for this. For first phase of West Midway? But in the end, when? So. Microphone, gentlemen. Excuse me. So we had three different product types in content. One was a rental community. Another was townhomes. The third was single family. So consequently, the the highest density project would be the largest of the three being the multifamily component. The townhomes would be next, and then we would have the fewest number of single family homes. So the townhomes and the single family, we will be selling off to third party developers. And frankly, one thing that we're doing with phase one and phase two is we are by working with true MA Homes right now, introducing those phases for the townhomes specifically where there's probably saw absorption and certainly the multifamily component in, you know, every 6 to 9 months, the 60 units. So that speaks to that absorption. But I'm not overly concerned about cannibalizing, if that's what the concern is, because again, in the big scheme of things, this is relatively small. It would true Mark. Or will true Mark be working with you? Will true Mark be working with you potentially on this project? Well. Uh, or Brookfield or. Oh. You're into partnerships. Say. That's interesting. Okay. But again, I think to your question, Councilmember Vela, you know, with both projects, the. Microphones, with. Both projects, we can manage the product types that we don't create a competition that jeopardizes the project. Did you have your questions answered? That's it. Okay. Thank you. You may sit down, I. So when. And I also met with Mr. Ernst one day last week, and I was I think I was the eggs in the basket person when we voted on this, worrying about putting all our eggs in one basket. And I do appreciate that. That was a question that was asked of the applicants, and I appreciated the responses. And my feeling is that, um, and it's been said before by the applicants that they have experience with this infrastructure. They have seen the surprises of which there were many. And yet last week in my weeks just fly by. So it was maybe Wednesday or Thursday. Last week, Councilmember o.T and I represented the city at a fabulous groundbreaking for the first residential construction to rise at Alameda Point and its affordable senior apartments at 60 affordable units. 20 and 30 of those are for formerly homeless seniors, 62 and older. 28 of those 30 are for formerly homeless veterans. And there we were at a former Naval Air station. Housing about two houses a year from now will be doing a ribbon cutting to house formerly homeless veterans, which is one of the really sad things in this housing crisis. We face that a significant percentage of our homeless are veterans, and that just is wrong on so many levels. And they serve their country. And now for a variety of reasons, they're living unhoused. But there there were those who said that, oh, you know, this the affordable housing, it'll get pushed to the wayside. We were the first project to go up is going to be market rate. Well, it's not and following shortly behind the senior will be the multifamily affordable housing. And so it was really a proud moment for us to speak because we had a lot of there were a lot of folks from the region who were there and even from Sacramento. And to be able to talk about no, we the city council, we have a commitment. We put our money where our values are and and, you know, do the right thing. But we need good partners to do it with us. So that's kind of a long way of saying that. I, too, would support the selection of Alameda Point Partners to be the the development team for the West Midway Project. So we have I think there's two things that are we a man clear cut me how are we doing to votes? We need to take a vote on selecting the development team for the West Midway Project and also other a city manager to negotiate an exclusive and execute and any. You can do it all. We can do it on one vote okay to have a motion or. I'll make that motion I. Have a motion from okay and have a second spin move by councilman cody seconded by Councilmember de sag all in favor. I. I that would be unanimous. This motion passes. All right. Congratulations again. And our apologies for the lateness of the hour. We had a lot of business to transact, and we are going to zoom into the next one. So, um, good morning.