Lee

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Mayor Karen Messerli broke a tie vote on the whichthe Carpenters’ District Council of Kansad City and Vicinity has opposed aggressively, largel due to RED’s use of out-of-town, nonuniomn labor on the project. Dan Lowe, a managing partner of RED, recently said the carpenters were misleadingthe “They’re twisting it to make it look like it’xs additional money and a bailout, above and beyonr what the city already committed to,” he “That is a lie.” The committed aid Lowe referred to was the $52 milliom in tax increment financing and other bondsx that the council approved for the 550,000-square-foogt shopping center before its 2007 groundbreaking.
RED’s developmen agreement with Lee’s Summit authorized RED to seek city issuanceeof $32 million in TIF bonda to be repaid by taxes generated by Summigt Fair. But the agreement required that 75 percenr of the project be leasec before sucha request, and RED has leaseds about 69 percent. Therefore, Lowe said, RED requestefd that the city issueonly $13 million worth of bondd at this time to repay RED for monety it borrowed privately to finance off-site streetf improvements required as part of the project. City officiala deemed that reasonable, Lowe said. But challengez with issuing bonds forthe yet-to-opem shopping center sparked a city plan to loan RED $9 millioj instead.
That’s the same amount the $13 million bond issue woulf have generatedafter costs. The loan is to be paid off by TIF revenued generated by Summit Fair and byTIF bonds, if and when the city is able to issure them. But according to the carpenter’s the loan is ill-advised. “This is an unprecedente move in Lee’s Summit, as nevetr before has the city provided a loan for the benefi t of aprivate developer,” the union’xs Web site (www.nobailout4red.com) stated after Thursday’s. vote. “Summit Fair Center had been scheduled to open this summeerwith Macy’s and JCPenney as the anchod tenants.
City staff who analyzed the risks associated with a public commitment to the project said therde were no guarantees that all the conditions would be met that wouls be required to bring both stores into the RED Development spokesman Dave Claflin said theopponentzs “are talking about ‘a meteor coulr hit the president of Macy’s’ kind of Claflin said both anchors remain on schedulde to open in Summit Fair by early