After receiving only one bid, from the developer they expected, City Council will hold a public hearing on the sale of two lots near the corner of Cherry Avenue and Ridge Street, which, if sold, could usher in dense development on what is some of the only vacant land near Downtown.
The two discontiguous lots, which were part of land condemned decades ago for the widening of Ridge Street, make up 0.37 acres of a 2.8-acre tract of steep, undeveloped land given over to bamboo, bramble and a creek. Southern Development owns the rest of the tract and has plans for a four-story mixed-use building. In April, the city issued a request for proposals (RFP) that includes a litany of criteria and conditions, including one that would obligate Southern Development to conduct a traffic study if it buys the land.
 The city is considering selling these two lots to Southern Development, which wants to build a four-story mixed-use building on the site. |
City Mayor Dave Norris handpicked three citizens from the Fifeville neighborhood—Karen Firehock, Nisha Botchway and Mark Gruber—to look at Southern Development’s proposal to make sure it meets the criteria of the RFP.
“We weren’t asking them to pass judgment on whether the site should be developed or this development per se,” says Norris. “I was asking them, ‘Does the proposal meet the terms of the city’s request for proposals?’ So it was a pretty limited scope of inquiry there.”
Staff had already determined that the proposal was ready for public hearing, says Norris, and he says that the group agreed that it was. “I thought it was important to get a few other eyes looking at it,” Norris says.
No date has been set for the public hearing.
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