Presentation to Morgantown City Council, 9/30/2014

Madame Chair, Madame Mayor, Members of City Council, and the Good People of Morgantown.

On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Campus Neighborhoods Revitalization Corporation, or Sunnyside Up, I am pleased to share with you the good news that we have completed work on Phase II of the Sunnyside TIF Project, construction to begin in early summer 2015.

I am pleased to report to you this evening as well that your investment in the "Sunnyside Up" Corporation over the past two fiscal years of $100K of operating funds guarantees you a return on your investment of at least $3.5 million, with a potential return of $8.5 million or more. Let me explain briefly.

The TIF Project that we present to Council through City Manager Mikorski calls for a public sale of TIF Bonds in the amount of $3.5 million. We propose that the $3.5 million be allocated to three specific areas of infrastructure improvement in Sunnyside:

1. A total reconfiguration of U. Ave. at its intersection with Beverly Ave. and Third Street: a preliminary estimate is that $1.7 million of the $3.5 would go toward this component of the TIF Project. That's a sizeable chunk of money. But consider this: working with the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization (the MPO), our $1.7 million investment in this segment of U. Ave. will leverage an estimated $7.5 to $8.5 million dollars in Federal study & construction grants. These federal funds will in part pay for a design study of the University Ave. corridor from Patteson Drive in Suncrest to its intersection with Beechurst Ave. at Fayette Street. It will include redesign of the Loop at the WVU Business School and Grumbein's Island at the Mountainlair. Add to Sunnyside Up's $1.7 million an investment by WVU of approximately $13 million in the Loop area, and the figure in development funds from Federal sources could go much higher than the $8.5 mentioned earlier. This is a work in progress.

2. Streetscape for Third Street with attention to the prospect of widening the street & removing parking permitting Third Street to serve as an arterial connection between Beechurst and University Ave. in place of Campus Drive: the Third Street component of the TIF Project is also a work in progress. It is estimated by AECOM, our TIF Engineering firm, that the cost of doing the streetscape will be in the neighborhood of $800K. It is also possible that a new stop light will be installed at the intersection of Third and Beechurst.

3. Sidewalks and Alleyways: the effort here will be to replace and build new sidewalks in strategic areas of Sunnyside, e.g. on Grant Avenue from Eighth Street to Seventh. AECOM's estimate for a linear foot of new sidewalk, with lighting, is $342.00; without lighting, $252.00 per linear foot. However, if a sidewalk is to be built without lighting, conduit for lighting will be installed as part of the new sidewalk construction. The estimated cost for paving an alleyway is $350.00 per linear foot, or $140K for your average alleyway. We have left open the possibility of doing a "demonstration" alley, wherein experiments can be made with building materials, parking configurations, and trash storage/removal in order to find what works best for Sunnyside overall. The Sunnyside Up Board will designate specific sidewalk and alleyway projects when we are able to determine the exact amount of funds, including partnerships, we will have to work with.

In April of 2013 I expected that we could develop a plan for the TIF Project by October 2013, or in six months time. That did not happen. We entered the planning phase of the TIF Project thinking in terms of Mutt's Place rather than University Place. We expected that we would propose a "streetscape" or "visible infrastructure" project. But, in May and June and July, there came University Place rising like the Phoenix Bird out of the ashes of Mutt's Place and we found that we could not ignore it.

I explain in my annual report for 2014, called "From Mutt's Place to University Place", the main reasons it took us another year to put in place a TIF for the NEW Sunnyside. Council has both digital and hard copies of my annual report. For the general public who may have an interest in reading it, please type into your search engine sunnysideupwv.org. That will take you to the home page of our web site. Scroll down in the menu to "Comp. Plan and Reports", and you will find "From Mutt's Place to University Place" there for your perusal.

Please do not be intimidated by the size of the Report. It runs on to 97 pages. All the average reader needs pay attention to is the first 40 pages. The other 67 pages contain all of the technical studies that undergird development of the TIF Project as I've presented it to you.

And that is the extent of my report Madame Mayor.