File this under "Never going to happen"...
Civic Center swap offered
Tuesday, April 03, 2007By DAN MURTAUGH and JEFF AMYStaff Reporters
Mobile Mayor Sam Jones has pitched a trade offer to the Mobile County Commission: the Mobile Civic Center parking lot for the old county courthouse site.
Jones made the offer last week to Commission President Juan Chastang as a way to end the dispute between the two over the old courthouse site in downtown Mobile. Jones wants a park there, while Chastang wants to let a developer build a high-rise condominium tower and retail stores on the property.
"My question to them was, 'Tell me what it would take to get you off this corner,'" Jones said in an interview after meeting with Chastang and John Stainback, who is consulting with the county on the deal.
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Chastang and Stainback said they would need another downtown property suitable for development, according to Jones.
The mayor said that if the county could get a developer to tear down the Mobile Civic Center complex and build a new parking garage, arena and theater, then the expansive parking lot there could be developed into retail stores and condos.
The city would continue to operate the Civic Center, Jones said, and the county would have more land for its development. The Civic Center complex is 21.5 acres, while the courthouse property is 2.7 acres.
"I told them, 'We need a large arena and a theater, but with that in mind give me a concept to redevelop the area, do what you want to do with the back part of the lot, and we might be able to talk about swapping properties,'" Jones said.
After the meeting, Chastang said in an interview that he was not interested in the deal. But his fellow commissioners, Stephen Nodine and Mike Dean, said they would be willing to listen to such a proposal.
"I think that's a reasonable compromise to take a look at," Nodine said. The commissioner said he liked that Jones's proposal would move the proposed condominium and retail development away from Christ Church Cathedral and the Museum of Mobile.
Jones and other city officials have said they've had tentative talks about redeveloping part of the Civic Center property in the past, but they've never come to much. Usually, the concepts hinge around building a parking garage behind the center's theater and using the rest of the parking lot land close to Interstate 10 to build something. There's also some chance the city would part with Expo Hall, the small convention space on the west end of the complex. It has gotten little use since the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center opened.
Jones tossed out the land swap idea on Thursday, after Chastang and Stainback presented him with a drawing of a proposed development on the old courthouse site. The plans include a 21-story condominium tower, a fountain pool surrounded by trees, ground-floor retail space, a restaurant, and a new Probate Court building with office space for government and private use.
Jones has been opposed to any development of the property. When he was on the County Commission, the body approved a plan to build a Mardi Gras-themed park with a giant fountain on the land.
The Civic Center was built in 1964 at a cost of $12 million, and the Expo Hall was added in 1973. The city has insured the building for about $40 million, according to a 2005 document.
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"I don't know how much that county courthouse site is worth, but the Civic Center is worth a lot more," said City Council President Reggie Copeland.
In the most recent fiscal year, the city has had to pay about $700,000 to subsidize operating losses. And city leaders were told by a consulting group last year that the complex needs millions in renovations and upgrades
The City Council voted last month to spend $180,000 to replace the escalator outside the arena, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.
Officials are shopping for consultants to redesign the climate control system, an effort that could cut utility costs by allowing managers to heat or cool one part of the complex at a time. The climate control upgrade would likely cost millions, but could pay for itself over time because of reduced power bills.
A consulting group that looked at Civic Center operations said some costs of some renovations were so high that they advised the city not to do the work -- particularly the $10 million to $20 million it could cost to bring the interior of the arena into compliance with disability access laws.
Chastang's plan for the courthouse development is already beginning to fall apart. One of the aspects he described last week was to cancel a $19.5 million project to add three stories to the Probate Court building and instead construct a new edifice that would contain both government and private-sector office space.
To do that, he would need the support of at least one other commissioner, because the Probate Court plan was approved in the county's 2004 Pay-As-You-Go program. Both Nodine and Dean have said they would oppose any move to cancel that plan.
"I was there when we made the decision on building that four-story building for the probate judge, and we owe him that commitment," Dean said.
The plan sounds great to me from the city's prospective, but I don't really see any benefit for the county commission. It sounds like the switch would make the county's development much more difficult and labor intensive. Since they can do whatever they want at the current site without city approval, I see no reason for them to agree to this new swap. I wish it would happen because then we would get redevelopment on the park site as well as the civic center area, 2 for 1. That arena is probably one of the worst in the nation. They propped it up with the Mystics,NBDL, Anything on Ice and monster truck shows to scrape by rather than just fix it a long time ago. Now we have come to a point where it needs to be demolished and start over. In the mean time, USA built the Mitchell Center which competes with it for some functions, is nicer, is not downtown, and is not owned by the city. I like the idea of getting rid of the parking lot and expo hall, which are both big wastes of space, and replacing them with something new and useful. This plan would definitely be the best course of action for Mobile and that area of downtown specifically, but I just can't see it coming to fruition.
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