The controversy regarding the development of the riverfront site continues to grow. I caught up with Shorewood Village President Guy Johnson prior to last Monday's Village Board meeting (1/7/08), and we talked at some length about where the potential Sunrise deal came from, its chances for approval, and other topics related to the development.
President Johnson agreed to have his comments posted. By way of full disclosure, the only editing I did was to my own question text, to make the questions more clear. I also reordered some of the paragraphs to group together comments on similar topics.
Do you see any specific concerns regarding the proposal Sunrise has submitted?
"I guess if I were thinking of reasons of concern it would be, it is single usage. But it is a single usage that is going to be necessary as the baby boomers age that could go to the next 30 years, 40 years. You can't turn it into apartments at any time because the units are too small."
What do you think the barriers are to a more mixed use type of development on this site?
"Well, some of it's probably the fact that it's a tougher economic decision because of the housing market right now. And we thought we would probably have something for the second half and the whole Milwaukee PC piece, but the one that was looking the best on it is pulling back right now because they want to wait and see what happens with the market.
"I hear some people saying 'get somebody else in.' Well you don't just get somebody else. That's not the way it works. It was for sale, and all of the sudden this came out, and it was decent. But I would rather see a nice mixed use with restaurants on the first floor...but nobody bid on that.
"I talk to some people, and they just think the Village has control and we can do what we want. But that's not the way it works. We can't just make it happen."
What incentives are we offering to Sunrise Senior Living for developing this site?
"We'll do some infrastructure with the roads, and plus that half a property. It's three properties. You've got the restaurant, the apartments, and Milwaukee PC. So the first two, they only want one and a half of them. So they're going to do the option on the whole second property, but they want a guarantee that we'll buy it back from them. We'll buy the half of the piece. So what it is, it's not really an incentive, it's just a protection.
"If we go through with it, we told them this is what we will do."
Do we have any flexibility on these incentives, if a better development were to emerge for this site?
"The CDA and the board are for it. If there is something better that came up, but there is not going to be something better. This was advertised to all of the developers that know anything about developing know about that property. They all knew about it before too. They come in and they start talking about it.
"Originally, the other possibility was Advanced Health Care. I mean they wanted to just put a big parking lot around it. And we were trying to force them to go underground with most of it because we didn't want it to look like a suburban parking lot."
If we decide this development is not in the best interest of Shorewood, what power do we have to change the outcome?
"The CDA wants it. The CDA is recommending it and the Board is moving in that direction right now. Everything we have been doing so far is for the transaction.
"I mean if what we are trying to do is increase the tax base in Shorewood, this is what we're doing. That's not a good location for school aged children. I am just talking about the location. And that's the thing that's the hardest too. You know, there is an apartment building there, and some people have lived there for many years too. But you've got an apartment owner that wants to sell. I mean, if they've got a gripe, it's against the owner."
