The Morning Report
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Eric Wolff at CityBeat is reporting that a draft analysis of the proposal to rebuild City Hall says the redevelopment project wouldn’t save as much money as originally thought.
Sources told Wolff that the draft paints the proposal to rebuild the Civic Center complex in a “negative tone” and that the savings would be less than the $400 million over 50 years that developer Gerding Edlen expected.
Wolff writes:
The report also suggests that the city reconsider the value it could get by negotiating better leases on offices it rents when the commercial rental market is down. The sources also say the report didn’t give high marks to the seven alternatives (PDF) that involve renovating the current Civic Center Complex without starting over.
The Centre City Development Corp. enlisted Ernst & Young to review a prior cost study of the Civic Center because of a potential conflict involving the lead analyst in the original proposal. The final report is expected in March.
Back in August, my colleague David Washburn took a look at the numbers behind Gerding Edlen’s proposal.