Out of the Blue: 1530 Dolphin

As reported Tuesday, the city apparently has made a high dive into the murky waters of the local real estate market to purchase a very nice, recently renovated building at 1530 Dolphin. The city is offering $4.4M for the less than ½ acre property and intends to tear the building down in order to construct a four story parking garage.

So what do we know about this? According to news reports, two commissioners were at an out of state affordable housing conference but voted via telephone. Only Danny Bilyeu opposed the purchase, saying that a developer is paying the city just $4.1 million for two acres between Palm and Pineapple avenues for the Plaza Verdi project and asking why that parcel has not, then, been priced at $16,000,000. The other commissioners expressed misgivings, but voted for the purchase anyway.

Apparently purchasing commercial property is just like buying residential property around here. As City Manager McNees said: "This is the price of poker...if we want to get into the parking game that's what it is going to cost." We hope the affordable housing conference has sessions on affordable parking as well.

There are many questions about this deal that we will be trying to answer over the next few days.

For instance, this property is located directly across Orange Avenue from Michael Saunders’ recently announced hi-rise development. Will her development be required to meet full parking requirements and not rely on the city parking garage?

The "Orange Dolphin Galleria" mall is only 3 short blocks from a larger city-owned parking lot on State Street. This is the lot the Isaac Group wants as part of its proposed Pineapple Square development. The city has a plan to issue a RFP for the State Street lot to get 350 parking places in exchange for the property and development rights of that lot.

What of the businesses that at great expense have set up shop in the 1530 Dolphin Mall and the city’s responsibility to them? What are those business owners’ responses to this sale and their upcoming eviction?
What about the parking master plan? Was this area identified as requiring this number of parking spaces? When did the parcel come up for sale and what was the identified parking need at that time? Why was the parcel not purchased in December, 2003, when the present owner bought it for $1,700,000? What are the local connections involved in this sale? And many other questions.

Calling an "emergency meeting" to make this decision certainly raises a lot of questions. Questions about the deal itself, questions about the true city need, questions about the timing, questions about other city priorities and where this fits in the city and downtown strategy. We understand that sometimes there is need to act quickly, when the window of opportunity is open. However, didn’t this decision require careful analysis of the needs and options prior to acting? In public affairs it always is wise to have several alternatives identified so that pressure decisions can be avoided.

Decisions like the one made Monday raise many questions while at the same time lowering the confidence level in our leadership. And a lot of people are asking the question whether downtown development is a high stakes poker game in which the public does not participate, or an effective long range planning effort that takes all community needs into consideration.