TO:                  Mayor William F. Martin, Jr.

                                    And

                        Members of the Lowell City Council

FROM:            Bernard F. Lynch, City Manager

DATE:             April 13, 2007

RE:                   Council Motion of 4/3/07 by Councillor Broderick

“Request the City Manager update the Council on the Hamilton Canal selection status and describe the selection criteria.”

________________________________________________________________________

Regarding the above mentioned motion, I have been in contact with Matt Coggins, DPD Director and he stated that the Hamilton Canal District Master Developer Selection Committee is currently conducting tours of the built projects by each of the three finalists as a final step before making a recommendation to the City Council.  The last of these tours is scheduled for April 12, 2007.  We anticipate that a recommendation will be submitted to the City Council no later than the beginning of May.  It would probably be helpful to schedule a meeting of the Economic Development Subcommittee for the first or second Tuesday in May to review the recommendations.  If desired, the recommended developer team could also be invited to attend this meeting or a meeting of the full Council to present their vision for the project and answer questions from members of the City Council. 

The selection criteria have not changed from those reviewed by the City Council in May and June 2006 as part of the authorization to issue the Master Developer solicitation.  The following is a summary of the criteria:

·         Developer's experience with large-scale mixed-use projects including

·         Developer's experience with pedestrian-friendly Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) projects

·         Developer's experience with Brownfields and urban redevelopment

·         Developer's experience with adaptive reuse of historic structures

·         Developer's financial position and capacity to successfully complete a project of this scale

·         Developer's connections and familiarity with local and regional development climate, market, and potential site developers

·         Designer's understanding of pedestrian-oriented, TOD, urban-scale development

·         Designer's familiarity with historic preservation and adaptive reuse

·         Designer's familiarity with urban site redevelopment

·         Designer's skills with urban design/master planning

·         Designer's experience conducting successful charrettes

·         Designer's experience preparing architectural pattern books and form-based codes for master-planned developments

·         Designer's experience with structured parking that does not detract from urban design context

·         Team's commitment to the principles of New Urbanism

·         Team's ability to work cooperatively and constructively with the City

·         Team's balance of experience with both residential and commercial development

·         Team's likelihood to successfully complete the project in a timely manner

·         Is the team proposing an outright purchase, a conditional purchase, or an option purchase?

·         If an option what are the terms and conditions (payments, length of option term, conditions for execution of the option)?

·         Will the Master Developer act as an end site developer or expect to sell entitled parcels to site developers?

·         Terms of original sale agreement including purchase price, responsibility for remaining demo/clean-up (city vs. developer)

·         Contributions to meet other municipal needs (examples might include contributions to the JAM Parking Garage financing, changes to the Lord Overpass, construction of municipal facilities within the project, repair to canal walls, construction of canal walks, etc.).

·         Demands made of the City (infrastructure support, bridges over the canals, parking, utilities, see list above)

·         Direct net financial benefit to the City

·         Job creation commitments made by the Master Developer

If you have any questions regarding this information, please let me know.  Thank you.