Special Bd. of Aldermen — 10/26/15 Page 4
The next thing is that | wanted to make sure that we are talking about something that is essentially in its nature
a startup. And a startup in its nature will need to change and adapt and evolve and change isn’t necessarily
bad and it is in fact ok so long as we don’t lose sight of our goals. So some of the details will evolve and they
have evolved from when we first started, and just as long as we stay true to the goals that we have outlined at
the beginning we will be able to be successful with this project.
| will conclude my comments with that, Mr. President. | am sure that there are questions.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Thank you Director Cummings. And thank you for the information and the Full Circle packet. In reference to
the memorandum that you gave us regarding New Market Tax Credit financing, and a conversation that we
had when the Operations Group met, we had talked about a 501(c)3 needing to be established. Are you ina
position to talk about that this evening or would you rather that information come from the consultant.
Mr. Cummings
So if | may Mr. President. | would actually defer to the consultant who | am hopefully have come in sometime
in October to meet with the Steering Committee to talk about an overview about how New Market Tax Credits
are structured or an overview of how the program works and then in particular his recommendation on how this
deal should be structured. | am by no means a New Market Tax Credit expert, they are very complicated. |
knew very early on that if we were going to pursue this type of program that we should get some outside
counsel and he is going to be available to us to help walk us through the nuanced details of how the program
works.
Alderwoman Melizzi-Golja
Thank you.
Alderman Jette
Thank you for this presentation. | have received some inquiries from people who saw Mr. Teeboom appear
before the Planning & Economic Development Committee. They were interested in some of the comments
that he made and | wonder if you are in a position this evening to reply to any of that?
Mr. Cummings
Well that is an interesting question. Am | in a position to answer any of those questions? | could answer those
questions, | feel as though by doing so would lend some sort of credibility to them. | don’t know if that is
necessarily the best thing. A lot of the points that were made have been brought up time and time again and
have been addressed and | don’t know if those answers are satisfactory or what not so they keep being
resurrected. Relative to the construction cost figure, all | can say is we put out through a third party
construction estimates through Fennessy Consulting. Fennessy Consulting is a professional cost estimator,
that was verified by the architect who was procured, Bruner / Cott, that architecture firm looked at this and so
you had two checks there and then we took a third check and added a local construction management firm
who knows the area, do a review. So you had three reviews of the numbers that were produced and | think the
document that was referenced was an older document, there was an updated document in February that
showed that something along the lines $11 million dollars in hard construction costs is what was going to be
necessary. So that is one point.
| guess the second point is this idea of design build, | would suggest was always part of the logical thought
process on how you'd approach this project, that is the reason why a construction management RFQ was put
out at the exact same time as an architectural and engineering RFQ. If we were going to do a design bid build
