After years of discussion with a local developer, the city has decided to put two city lots on Ridge Street up for sale. While some neighbors are crying foul, the city argues it’s trying to do the right thing with vacant parcels.
The two city lots, which aren’t contiguous, make up 0.37 acres of a 2.8-acre tract of undeveloped land on the corner of Ridge Street and Cherry Avenue. The rest of the land is owned by Southern Development, a local company that has long had designs to build on what is some of the only vacant land near Downtown. With plans for a four-story mixed-use building on the steeply sloping tract, Southern Development argues it can leave more open space as a buffer between it and the adjoining properties if it can fold in the city parcels.
But many neighbors haven’t been keen on the idea of the development. Earlier this year, they submitted a petition with 100 signatures to City Council, asking the city to follow its policy for sales and not to decide to sell before completing a traffic study that measures impacts of other pending projects like Biscuit Run and the Meadowcreek Parkway.
The city sees a request for proposals (RFP) issued last week for the lots as a way of honoring the neighbors’ concerns. The RFP includes a litany of criteria and conditions, including one that would obligate Southern Development to conduct a traffic study if it buys the land.
“We’re just excited about the opportunity,” says Southern Development’s Charlie Armstrong, who confirms the company is putting together a proposal.
“Responsible development on that site is expected and warranted given where it is on a major corridor, and the neighbors want to make sure it’s done right,” says city Mayor Dave Norris.
But not all neighbors see it as plainly. Antoinette Roades, who lives on Oak Street, sent an e-mail to Dave Norris several days after the RFP was issued. Rather than responding to the petition, “what you have chosen to do—that is, talk privately with Southern Development operatives, then hold a short-notice public sale designed to accommodate Southern Development as single bidder—constitutes more of the behavior our petition sought to arrest,” said Roades in the e-mail. She listed several other issues, including a concern that the ravine on the property won’t be preserved, to the detriment of the environment.
The RFP gives a deadline of May. It doesn’t obligate the city to sell the land.
Still, there is no bidder as obvious as Southern Development. “It is conceivable that somebody other than Southern Development could win the bid,” says Norris. “But everybody that’s involved understands that Southern Development has a vested interest in combining those parcels.”
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