CITY INVESTMENT IN DOWNTOWN

Read the City Manager's Blog on City of Middletown!!
Here are excerpts...Comments will follow on next post


City Investment in Downtown Businesses
MAY 19, 2017 LEAVE A COMMENT
Our friends over at Middletown USA seem fixated on the millions of dollars that we pump into downtown each year. I thought it was important to lay out the facts and then have a discussion.   I started on this blog post yesterday and hit the wrong button and published it half written. I apologize for the confusion if you saw the earlier posting.

Our intention was always to prime the pump for private sector commercial redevelopment and then to get out of the way. We did that with Pendelton Arts Center and Cincinnati State and earlier with Beau Verre.   Here is our investment in downtown since I took over as City Manager in 2015:

The City has also provided funding for the façade grant program. This is a reimbursable grant for exterior repairs to storefronts.   The façade grant program is funded through a HUD program from the 1980’s called UDAG. Here is HUD’s explanation of the program:

“The Secretary is authorized to make urban development action grants to cities and urban counties which are experiencing severe economic distress to help stimulate economic development activity needed to aid in economic recovery. There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section $225,000,000 for fiscal year 1988, and $225,000,000 for fiscal year 1989. Any amount appropriated under this subsection shall remain available until expended.”

We have been loaning and recycling that fund since 1989. DMI (Downtown Middletown Inc.) currently oversees the receipt of applications and the distribution of funding for façade grants. To date it has been used for downtown façade renovations. The thought was to utilize the grants in a small area to make a noticeable difference in storefront appearance. We have temporarily suspended the program for 2017 and are looking at future uses for the remaining funds, including opening the program up to some other dedicated area outside of downtown.

The following grants have been made since 2015:

Year                        Owner                                                  Amount

2015                     Middletown Arts Center                     $ 1,890.00

2015                     Middletown Better Homes               $ 2,000.00

2015                     Barbara Park Realty                          $ 10,000.00

2015                     Pendleton Corp                                  $ 7,713.00

2015                     2005 Group                                         $    956.00

2015                    Art Central Foundation                    $ 1,693.00

2015                   Middletown Better Homes               $ 5,000.00

2015                   Cincy by the Slice                               $ 4000.00

2015                   Denny Lumber                                   $ 4,000.00

2015                   Art Central Foundation                   $ 1,500.00

2015                   Liberty Spirits                                   $ 2,000.00

2015                   1310 Pendleton                                 $ 3,000.00

2016                   Liberty Spirits                                  $     500.00


2016                  Torchlight Pass, LLC                      $ 30,000.00

2016                 All About You Catering                   $ 600.00

2016               One Market Eatery                           $ 7,926.00

2016               Gracie’s LLC                                       $20,000.00

2016               Central Y Canal Investment           $ 1,580.00

2016               West Central Wine                          $ 432.00

Total:                                                                       $104,840.00

Wow, Mr. Adkins must have some thin skin to post this....

Whistlersmom -

tip of the iceberg
and could we see expenditures in similar businesses located outside of the former downtown?

take it back only 20 years
to see how much
totals(including admin hours) for:
Thatcher transactions
Duncan Oil
Manchester
Rose
Goetz(5th/3rd)
Pendleton(well over a mill--maybe 2?)
Beau Verre
Finkleman
TV Middletown/Torchlight
Cincy St
Liberty
former bank buildings
Arts Central
DMI
MMF
CVB

not so much currently as the grand total over two+ decades to be this far along

Spiderjohn -

Point being made to mr.A, council Jonathan and everyone is that we can't change the past--we can possibly shape the future.

whistlersmom wrote: Buildings that the city gave away cost the city their purchase price, never to be reimbursed. Wasn’t Ms. Greenham director of Downtown Middletown Inc. when her fiance acquired 1201 Central Ave. from the city for a bargain basement price?   DMI under Ms. Greenham’s leadership had to approve this sale (remember the required approval for O’Reillys) for the bike shop that they will now run together.   Isn’t that a conflict of interest?

Hopefully we all have learned from the past and can move forward as a united community with tax funding spread appropriately and equally where NEEDED(not simply wanted) throughout the city

It would be proper for the city and fund recipients to document to the public exactly how the taxpayer funding has been used. Surely admin follows up on the activity.

Hey--we should all celebrate the good things finally happening in the former downtown, and support the independent businesses. Especially the ones not taking and/or needing public $$ to survive. And those operating down there in the holy land should also support businesses outside of their radius. That is how we become one community again.

jmo

spiderjohn wrote: Hopefully we all have learned from the past and can move forward as a united community with tax funding spread appropriately and equally where NEEDED(not simply wanted) throughout the city

Mr. Adkins -

I read the blog, swohio
btw I respect your opinions, trust your info and in no way doubt your commitment and direction towards the community.

We were lucky in business(maybe good at times!)and honestly never needed corporate welfare from the city. Only time that we were involved was when we were "re-located" from a very successful location on Verity to the then new S University Blvd. I think that my father did the community and neighborhood proud with that project which opened in 1972.

After the mall de-construction(with honestly no follow-up plan), the area began it's slow and very expensive revival. City admin pretty much forgot about the rest of the community to nurse their new baby along. No coincidence that almost all other shopping areas pretty much withered and died except for the far east and west borders. White collar job losses, factory closings(also upper blue collar job losses) factored heavily also(understatement). Schools closed and consolidated and our neighborhood concept was gone.

It is good to finally see Admin(under Mr.A) at least talk about cutting back on the former downtown area obsession/compulsion, though the damage has long been done.

We only hope for the new generation wanting to make this area their home to understand the necessity to involve and include all neighborhoods and everyone. We must all respect and support each other.

This all goes FAR beyond 2015 and a few small niche businesses in a two-block radius. And yes it does bother me to be viewed by so many as a negative force in the community. Truth is often painful for most everyone.

A number of important questions from previous posts about city investment in downtown, concerning the use of taxpayers’ money for facade grants, have not been answered. The “explanation” offered by Mr Adkins on his own blog on CityofMiddletown.org looks like a Dougie duck which might better be described as an albatross. Adkins said:

“The City has also provided funding for the façade grant program. This is a reimbursable grant for exterior repairs to storefronts.   The façade grant program is funded through a HUD program from the 1980’s called UDAG.   Here is HUD’s explanation of the program:

‘The Secretary is authorized to make urban development action grants to cities and urban counties which are experiencing severe economic distress to help stimulate economic development activity needed to aid in economic recovery. There are authorized to be appropriated to carry out this section $225,000,000 for fiscal year 1988, and $225,000,000 for fiscal year 1989. Any amount appropriated under this subsection shall remain available until expended.’

We have been loaning and recycling that fund since 1989. DMI (Downtown Middletown Inc.) currently oversees the receipt of applications and the distribution of funding for façade grants. To date it has been used for downtown façade renovations. The thought was to utilize the grants in a small area to make a noticeable difference in storefront appearance. We have temporarily suspended the program for 2017 and are looking at future uses for the remaining funds, including opening the program up to some other dedicated area outside of downtown.”

Note that what he describes as a REIMBURSABLE grant for exterior repairs to store fronts is paid for through a HUD program called UDAG (Urban Development Action Grant). It is NOT A LOAN to property owners of store fronts which will be paid back to the city. That’s why its called a grant not a loan. How does the word reimbursable apply to a grant? None of the money handed out to the downtown property owners for facade grants has been (or ever will be) repaid to the city. So how can this be called recycled?

The millions of dollars that HUD set aside for UDAG WAS FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY not for just Middletown! And that was in 1988-89!!!! Those funds were only available until expended. It was a one time opportunity and Mr Adkins said “to date it has been used for downtown facade renovations (originally for the area where the mall roof was removed). We don’t know what $ amount Middletown property owners received to set back and replace the store fronts (which property owners had been forced to move out into the mall), and we don’t know what $ amount (from what grant) was received for tearing off the mall roof.

There was $13 million in bonds and/or loans taken out by the city for the mall roof removal. Was that $13 million paid off when the government funds for that were received??? Isn’t it a Federal Offense to use federal funds for anything other than their designated purpose??? And how can Adkins claim that we have ANY grant money left over from 1989!   What a joke!!  If there is remaining grant money, what fund (or city coat closet) has it been hiding in and just exactly how much money is there? Why wasn’t that grant money used instead of using up the general slush fund where enterprise funds, etc. had been illegally dumped and put up for grabs? Where do you think he’s really getting this funding? Maybe it’s coming out of our taxpayer pockets, better known as Mr Adkins’ slush fund!!!

Now he says that DMI oversees the funding for the “non-existent” facade grants. Since when can, what Adkins claims is a non-governmental agency, handle (supposed) government money?  Weren’t the original facade grants limited to a single (not multiple) $5000 per store front? In addition the “non-existent” facade grant money fund is misused. Mike Presta commented:

“Let's not forget all of the FACADE Grant money that has been spent on the REAR of downtown buildings facing alleys for such things as repairing/replacing old doors and windows and painting back walls.  This is actually ROUTINE MAINTENANCE, not "façade" work!!!   Why do downtown business owners have the taxpayers foot the bill for their routine maintenance when no other businesses in other areas of town get the fruit of the same scam???”

Take note of Doug’s list (see the first post under this topic) of grants in 2015-16; some of the $ amounts are over the $5,000 limit set for facade grants and there are repeated facade grants to the same addresses and owners. A grant, by definition is just that, a grant, which does not have to be paid back. How can the city claim to “loan and recycle” grant money (which is NOT a loan) from 1989?

Hiding the handout of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, repeatedly, to favored downtown recipients, behind a “non-existent “grant money fund needs to cease. The confusing, convoluted and difficult to unravel manor in which such matters are presented by Mr Adkins on his blog, seems to cleverly facilitate a cover-up of behind the scenes manipulations of taxpayers’ money.

DATE June 21, 2016