Of the 38 projects awarded money under the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit pilot program, only three are located in southwest Ohio - and none in Hamilton County.
Conversely, Cuyahoga County alone received funding for 20 projects.
On Thursday, the Ohio Department of Development (ODOD), who administered the tax credit program, announced that the two-year program would be closed after its initial $120 million pool had been exhausted.
There was no dollar cap on individual awards, and, rather than evaluating the entire field of applicants to determine which projects would have the most local impact, ODOD chose to disburse funds on a first-come, first-served basis.
A total of 115 applications were submitted to ODOD, including the following local projects:
* $7.1 million for the Middle Earth Developers apartment/retail project at 617 Vine Street
* $4.5 million for the Bloomfield/Schon + Partners Factory Square mixed-use project in Northside
* $4 million for Dorian Development's Inwood Village condominium project in Mount Auburn
* $4 million for various 3CDC-owned buildings in Over-the-Rhine, including the proposed Project Beacon at 1539 Race Street
* $484,000 for the Urban Sites Properties Belmain condominium project at 1202-1204 Main Street
* $196,000 for Over-the-Rhine Community Housing's City Home project on Pleasant Street
* $50,000 for the rehabilitation of 1346 Broadway
The program would have provided refundable tax credits equal to 25 percent of qualified renovation rehabilitation expenditures.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
SW Ohio largely bypassed by failed tax credit program
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Hmm, I don't understand. Does that mean we just go out-hustled to the funding by Clevelanders?
I would love for some one that knows the inside scoop to post about this. Seems that an insider from Cleveland alerted them to the program before the rest of the State.
The methodology of making the awards seems more than suspect given the stated goals of the credits. If the goal is to promote the redevelopment of historically/architecturally significant buildings, a first come/first served approach seems to be about the worst way to decide who gets funds from a limited pool of funds (if the pool was specifically bounded, it would make a lot more sense)
Does that mean the can building will just sit as a shell in Northside until they find money somewhere.?
Some one in cleveland pulled some strings. My guess it was the attorney that knew the right strings to pull. Y'all picking up what Im puttin down?
When we submitted our application the first guy to submit was an attorney representing 20 projects in cuyahoga county, funny his projects got funded everyone else's didn't. Politics, politics.
american can in northside is still on track btw. making progress inside the building everyday, the exterior renovation will commence once the weather permits.
Personally, I suspect that someone who was involved with the drafting of the statute leveraged the insider knowledge into having many proposals ready to go. This of course is sheer speculation, but I am hoping that someone with a bigger voice than me investigates this and opens up the drafting/passage/application process to the light of day.
I agree that using "first come, first served" as the selection process is a poor way to pick which projects get funded, but what we have to learn from this is that if there is a "next time" for these kinds of funds, we must have Cincinnati area projects ready to submit on Day One. Maybe that attorney in Cleveland did "pull strings", or maybe he just had his s*** together and his whole city will benefit from it. In either case, we need to make sure that we're first in line next time.
jimmy, my man, I camped out over the weekend in front of the historical center, then submitted our project at 7 am on that monday. After preparing our proposal for three months with different accountants and attorneys. One of the guys in line was an attorney submitting 20 cayahoga county projects, his were the only ones to get funding. shady, very shady. There were many other cincinnati guys there waiting at the front door monday 7 am. I think this guy had some kind of inside track! Politics as usual, maybe I need to contribute to the same campaign as that attorney. "next time", "next time"
Well, assuming that The Enquirer got it's facts right in their story over the weekend (which, admittedly, is a big assumption to make), his 20 projects weren't "the only ones to get funding". 17 others were funded as well. Their article states "Only 37 of 115 applicants received credits, and those 37 were among the first 39 to submit applications". If that is in fact, correct, then "this attorney" isn't to blame, but rather the poor selection process. It's good to hear that the Cincinnati proposals were submitted in a timely manner, but apparently that wasn't enough this time. Do I think the whole thing sounds shady? Yeah, but I'd rather deal with facts than rampant speculation. This reeks of the inefficieny and incompetence I have come to expect from government-run programs, so that's where I choose to lay the blame at this point.
This is a total CROCK! I say we IMPLORE our state reps to investigate this, get all that money back, and re-do this process.
I'm writing my rep right now.
Nuts!
Jimmy James, right on.
The selection process is what is screwy here. And thats a result of poor draftsmanship, or thought, about how to implement the program. Someone, or some group of people, realized this and exploited it.
What really irritates me is that the objective of the tax credit was made secondary to a simple means of administering who got the credits. This ends up devaluing the objective of the program.
^ Bingo. Thus the reason for my use of the word "failed" in the headline, because it failed to fulfill its stated purpose.
I do not want this story to go away, and, like dew, I would encourage you to contact your reps in state government. If you feel like it, hit up ODOD and the Ohio Historic Preservation Office as well. Write Lt. Gov. Fisher. Protest in the streets.
Okay...strike that last part.
I can vouch for Green Real Estate Developer -- many Cincinnatians were in line early to submit their projects.
I could be mistaken, but I do not think that initial state representations concerning the credit mentioned the $120 million cap. It seems this happened after the July 1st deadline after many people gained the required ownership of their property and had relied on the money being there in going forward with their project.
Don't be surprised if this thing lingers. Obviously SW OH politicians are not pleased and many people got screwed who relied on the information that came out of ODOD.
You might look in part to the fact that the Cleveland architect is on the Board of Trustees of the organization that pushed the program -- as is a representative of the Ohio Department of Development.
^ Are you serious?
Good to hear that the selection process did not come down to lack of effort.
Horrible to hear that the selection process came down to insider trading at worst, government absurdity at best.
The irony is that the Department of Development's arbitrary decision to cap the program will result in many of the applicants' properties falling into foreclosure and many of the applicants/developers going bankrupt. Like someone earlier on this blog mentioned, this is due to the fact that many developers relied on the wording of the statute that required applicants to own their building in order to apply. The current administration is not taking that into account, nor is it fully understanding the full benefit to the state economy of having these projects move forward. If all the qualifying applicants were approved, this would represent 1.1 BILLION dollars in investment in Ohio, mainly from out-of-state monies. But sadly, ODOD is shutting it down. Perhaps Lt. Governor Lee Fischer should change his title to Director of Economic Stagnation.
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