Nugget project: developer and consultant have history of public projects
Submitted by Kirk Caraway on Thu, 04/29/2010 - 10:08am
Today's Nevada Appeal has a story about how a developer has been selected for the Carson Nugget downtown redevelopment project.
The story mentioned that the developer, P3 Development, built the $64 million Stockton Events Center while Mark Lewis was that city's manager.
But that understates the ties between Lewis and the developer. Looking at the projects listed on P3's website, a large part of their work seems to stem from the City of Stockton, and happened during Lewis' tenure.
Besides the events center, there was the $24 million minor league ballpark, the $54 Stockton Waterfront Hotel, the $7 million San Joaquin County WorkNET Office Building, the $5.3 million San Joaquin Council of Governments Office Building, and the $16 million Robert J. Cabral Agricultural Center, all in Stockton.
Having a developer and project consultant with a history of working together would seem to be a good thing. However, in the case of Lewis, he has a history of racking up big public development projects as well as a lot of controversy.
This in-depth story from the Stockton Record examines Lewis' long history of accomplishments and controversies, ending with his stormy tenure as city manager of Stockton.
For instance, Lewis took it upon himself to redesign the Stockton ballpark to remove the upper level, supposedly to cut costs. But he allegedly made that change without consulting the mayor or city council, and — far from saving money — the move delayed the project and helped add to a 50 percent cost overrun.
The final straw that got Lewis fired in Stockton was the nearly $400,000 he spent to have Neil Diamond perform at the newly completed Stockton Events Center, supposedly without informing his bosses.
Lewis went on to become the redevelopment manager for Reno, where he spearheaded the Reno Aces ballpark project. He was also dismissed from that job in the wake of city budget problems. One of those budget problems was the guarantee the city made to the ballpark developers (under Lewis' direction) that is now costing the city $1 million a year.
While everyone has been waiting for a developer to be selected to flesh out the details of the Nugget project, the Appeal story makes the case that it will be months longer before we know what those details are.
Rick Oshinski, CEO of P3 Development, in the Appeal story also repeated Lewis' prior contention that the success of the project will depend on whether they can get state agencies to commit to occupying some of the 177,000 square feet of planned "class A" office space.
Critics of the project have pointed out that with the state's budget problems, it will be a hard sell to get any funding for state agencies to move to better, more expensive office space, as well as paying for the moving costs.
Private landlords are also very eager to keep their current tenants in the down commercial real estate market, and have been actively renegotiating leases. It was suggested to me by one commercial broker that any state agencies that are talking about moving to this new development could very well be doing it to pressure their current landlords into dropping their rents.
Critics also point out that for a project touted for its promise of spurring private enterprise, it would rely mostly on city and state money — that's taxpayer money — to pay the bills.
We are eagerly awaiting the details as this project plays out.
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