Special Board of Aldermen 03-15-2021 Page 6
weigh in on this amendment. The amendment basically made it explicit which | think everyone understood
to be implicit from the 2019 document which was to consolidate all the hazardous waste material that was
in and along the various sites into the Mohawk Tannery Site. Because of the way the EPA is organized,
they were only looking at the site very specifically at the “Mohawk Tannery Site” and environmental
remediation that would be necessary. So this made it explicit that it would actually be more than just the
Mohawk Tannery Site as the current plan suggests.
To move this project forward, the private sector developer, Blaylock Holdings, has represented that they
would take on the remediation. They have entered into an agreement with the EPA where the EPA is
provided something like $6 million dollars in assistance so they can do the environmental remediation. My
understanding and some recent communication has just come into my office. On Friday we got an update
from Blaylock Holdings, | haven’t had a change yet to review it. But it has always been discussed
previously that there would be something like 50,000 square feet of commercial activity on the site, in terms
of retail or other type of uses and then somewhere around 250 to 300 units of apartments. That was
essentially the broad stroke uses that they would like to envision on the 30-ish acres. My understanding is
that is still the current thought process or something to that degree or in that realm. And then the question
has always come up because, just the idea of the cost for the cleanup being somewhere between $8 to $10
million dollars and | question whether that is even a truly flushed out figure. But going with that number and
understanding the EPA is willing to commit somewhere around $6 million dollars, there’s a gap and using
the high end, and just saying $10; there’s a gap that needs to be filled.
We had always previously represented that the City would be interested in some sort of small participation
through a TIF and | am looking just to get some direction tonight to make sure that | am still in good stead
to continue to represent that. There are more questions than probably answers at this point; | want to make
that really clear for everyone. This is an on-going conversation, when | originally started down this path
most recently with the Memo just a couple of weeks ago, it was really just to get the ball started to let this
Board know that coming over the next months or even a year, somewhere in '21, somewhere in '22 this
conversation was going to progress and get more substantial and substantive. | thought that that this would
just be a good time to start the conversation so | could continue representing what the wishes may be of
the Board of Aldermen and the Administration and try to progress the project if that was still something that
this body desired. So I'll leave my comments there. | am hoping to open it up to a little bit of a Q&A and,
again, just remind folks that there may be a lot of questions that | don’t have answers to yet but we are
working through that.
| guess one other comment | would like to make is | Know some members of this body have reached out to
me and asked me specific questions. | have held off on responding to some of those questions because |
don’t have those answers. Particularly, | just want to just say Alderwoman Elizabeth Lu reached out to me
to ask me specifically who would be responsible for the difference in the cleanup costs and that’s the exact
question that | want to have tonight, | want to have a discussion on tonight is how do we want to frame that
conversation? What is the expectations? Who is going to be the responsible parties? And | think that’s a
bigger conversation than any 1, 2 or 3 people and it is predicated on this body providing some feedback to
me. So, thank you, Madam Chair.
President Wilshire
Thank you. Alderman Lopez?
Alderman Lopez
Yeah, earlier you said that you were trying to do this briefing so that we would be able to participate in
public comment. | believe that is closed as of Saturday, not that the Alderman can’t comment whenever
they want, but | just figured | would share that with everybody.
