Developers have invested hundreds of millions in new homes in the northeast part of town. Could we please have some paved streets out here before considering what to do with that antiquated eye sore at the west end of Frederick ave.

more same old, same old.i didnt know we needed a convention center.it,s nice to have the council in your pocket. there is nothing we can do, do what you want or what you can get away with.someday the city will be made of gold and it will still be downtown.

The devil is in the details.....properly done, a TIF is a good idea that benefits everyone. Poorly crafted it is a big expense for taxpayers.

It has the potential to attract better developers who will put up their own money. That's good.

It has the potential to have all the cost borne by funds generated by the project....funds that would never have come in had not the project occurred. That's good.

If the city advances "front money" bad things can happen and that's bad.

I have not seen the details of this program so I do not have an opinion if it's good or bad.

By the way, goobentrot....home development is a whole different concept than commercial development so you've got apples and lug nuts in the same bowl....they dont' mix.

The devil is in the details.....properly done, a TIF is a good idea that benefits everyone. Poorly crafted it is a big expense for taxpayers.

It has the potential to attract better developers who will put up their own money. That's good.

It has the potential to have all the cost borne by funds generated by the project....funds that would never have come in had not the project occurred. That's good.

If the city advances "front money" bad things can happen and that's bad.

I have not seen the details of this program so I do not have an opinion if it's good or bad.

By the way, goobentrot....home development is a whole different concept than commercial development so you've got apples and lug nuts in the same bowl....they dont' mix. Makes for difficult discussion

ibc, as I understand it, the city will not be advancing ny money on this TIF. There is no financial exposure for the city, no bonds to be issued that are guaratneed by the city (as has happened in Kansas City). This was emphasized when the proposal was brought before the TIF commission several weeks ago. The developers will bear the risk -- and the benefits. There liely will be a 1 percent special sales tax within the district.

Nothing difficult about this discussion real estate development and commercial development both need paved streets. In this example one has em and the other one doesn't.

If we are going to spend 25 million dollars on a entertainment district lets spend that money on attracting employers to town first. If you do not have good paying jobs who in the heck is going to keep this entertainment district going the city of St Joseph? Come on city goverment wake up and quick spending money on this dead horse called downtown. But someone must have all of the council members in their front pockets. If you took a survey in the community you council member would find that the cmajority of the community is against spending more money downtown. You all need to spend money to attract good paying manufacturing jobs to St Joseph not on downtown.Oh heres a better idea lets give some of this money to the St Joseph School district for we can get our school mess under control. Just a thought.

goobentrot....nothing difficult about it. It's simply not the same and if you try to make the same principles work you'll bump your head.

You can fill a bucket with water and a tire with air. Try to reverse the process.

goob..... were the roads like they are right now when you ostensibly decided to move to the NE part of town?

conversely, the roads and all of the infrastructure in downtown Must be maintained. i do not understand what those who constantly gripe about an effort to bring downtown to a level where it will contribute to its own upkeep want? would you prefer to have your brand spanking new houses pay the entire tax burden? that makes absolutely no sense fiscally.

as for bringing manufacturing jobs here........ the city has long been dependent on union manufacturing jobs. seems like that isn't working out too well. i may be mistaken, but i believe that small business is the mainstay of our economy here...... many downtown areas are booming with far less in the way of raw material that we have down here "at the end of frederick".

if this city had instituted impact fees, those who live in the NE would have had their developer paying for your infrastructure costs. you would have paid your "fair share" by paying an additional 5k for your terrific new homes. to turn the tables, maybe those of us who live in the historic districts should cry foul on having to build roads for your houses and schools. as it is, the city gives away the bank to get people to move to an area where they could see that the roads are inadequate, and where there was no neighborhood school. this is a bit like those who complain about the trains making so much noise..... did they fail to see the tracks behind the hotel when they checked in?

i am completely against the convention center. B O O N D O G L E ........

AAAARGH. missed a "G".......

I moved away shortly after the 1970s round of urban renewal that took the Robidoux Hotel and gave us... a convention center. What happened to that one?

I came back to St. Joe last November with an eye to moving back and buying a house. The whole town looks pretty much boarded up west of about Ashland. I was shocked and saddened, and came back to Spokane County, Washington to buy my house.

Frank Hartigan
Medical Lake, WA

This is not necessarily to promote downtown, but...have you driven in the area from 4th street to 10 street...from Edmond south about 12 blocks......do it slowly and the first thing you'll notice is alot of old buildings...most not too spiffy....but then you realize there are a bunch of cars nearby (read that...employees) The other thing you notice is actually quite afew new buildings in the area. And they seem to have a bunch of employees also.

Drive back and forth, around the block & you realize there is some good business in the area

This isn't very scientific, but I'd say there has been a lot of development in that area over the past 10+ years

That area has a lot of manufacturing/service/etc going on.

I'm not sure how you pull that together with some improvements in the downtown but it's worth thinking...

H, road improvements have historically been done over many years, judging by the pothole at the bottom of your hill at one time your street was brick and I imagine before than it was unpaved or gravel. I wonder what the condition was when your house was built. The city improved it. I know my road was dirt when my house was built. It is now asphalt (having filled up the curbs). I'm sure the city improved it. Why shouldn't the city provide those same benefits to those in the NE?

Every opportunity that is out there should be instituted, voted upon, and fully utilized to improve the entire city, not just certain sections. We as a community should have the confidence to go anywhere in this city and find things to see and do as well as not be ashamed of showing it off to visitors. We should have the capabilitie of bringing in a huge influx of visitors that would want to see both the old and new of St. Joseph and its future potential. Alienating sections of town is not a productive approach. When it is all said and done, downtown, the East, North, South and West ends all have problems to deal with, and they all need to be addressed and resolved across the board. No section should be neglected. The issue on the sidewalks, I am not all that familar with some of the developments out there, but if any of those developments are private and gated communities, then I have a pretty good idea of why the issue is the way it is in those places, based on my previous municipality experience. Whether it right or fair is another matter, but if I can be enlightened a bit, maybe I can offer some insight and help address those situations. There are plenty of resources out there already to help address issues, the challenge is finding those resources and encouraging the right people who know how to address the issues to address them properly. Many times resources are out there, but we do not know they even exist. This is where our elected officials can really help, by assisting the public in finding those resources and getting them into play. Cities whose councils utilize this philsophy to its maximum potential are productive and successful. A classic example is Cape May, NJ. Another right south of us, Branson. Alot of people joke about Roswell, NM, but that community found a way to make a successful city based on a story and they are expanding. Opportunity is out there, we have to seixe it. So my question to you Apple, what do you know about how a municipality runs?

Apple, explain to me why you would move the pony express exhibits from the pony express stables.

Apple, you should come down to Coleman Hawkins Park on Friday night, enjoy the free concert, look in the stores, eat in the restaurants and see all the people. Call the St Joseph Downtown Association and ask for information about the number of residents and businesses in the downtown core..then on Sunday, come back down for church services...this is a part of the city that houses people, businesses, churches and history.

apple, those are some great ideas about downtown. i don't have a single solitary problem with the NE section. my brother and one sister live in homes exactly like the homes in the greystone area, and we in fact used to live in florida versions of those homes when i had my horse farms. i am not an historic nut, and the first "historic" home we owned was a simple bungalow in tampa. i bought the house we now own on the internet sight unseen, and intended it to be a college graduation gift to our son...... who took one look at stjo and said, No Way.

every solitary penny of the 120k+ that we have put in this house was MY money. i have never accepted/applied for a solitary cent from any government entity, and we do not have a mortgage on this house. last week i picked up the papers for the uptown redevelopment program, which will never go into effect until i finish this house....... meaning probably Never. no money comes to us from that application. every contractor who worked on her was a local, and every dollar went to feed a local family. no material was used on her which is not salvaged or purchased from local business. i could easily have paid cash for a comparable sized home in one of the NE neighborhoods, but i didn't because.....

we moved here entirely by accident. i find it to be a happy circumstance for my husband and i, who love it here. there is nothing in florida like the architecture here, and tampa has a dead crummy downtown which is also floundering and has been for 50 years. perhaps a comparison of the admiration which so many who travel to florida for vacation and find the palm trees to be So Exotic is in order. to me, palm trees are ugly sticks with fronds stuck on the top. visitors to florida say how great it is to have warm weather nearly all year long , and i LOVE the seasons here. to me, stjo is exotic and enchanting. it is all in your perception, i guess.

i don't believe that any area of the city should have primacy, all are necessary to bring this city to her full potential. that is not "campaigning" it is a heartfelt desire on my part.

238, i did not say that the city should not provide road improvements in the NE. i responded to goob's initial post, and pointed out that the roads were inadequate there from the outset. the access to that area seems to be predicated on the hospital, largely. from sitting in on enough meetings i have the impression that if the city had indeed instituted impact fees, the roads would not have been left entirely to the city to develop and perhaps this situation wouldn't have been as dire as it now appears to have gotten.

as to my pothole at the bottom of the hill, yes the road was formerly brick. i wish it still were, frankly. i think the city does an excellent job of keeping up with pothole repair. we get really great snow removal, also. there are tradeoffs, though, because we cannot park on the street on heavy snow days.

i drive out lover's lane on the way out to the belt because i think it is a lovely neighborhood........ the potholes there are usually much worse than on my street.

h, I agree that some roads should still be brick. Frankly I think the downtown, museum hill, cathedral, hall street areas could benefit from brick streets. Downtown never will since they ripped them all out years ago. It would add to the character of the areas.

It would seem like the term paved roads has somehow struck a nerve with the residents in the older part of the city. Arterial routes such as Gene Field beyond Lenord Rd. and cook road have been left off of the planning table for 40 years plus. These streets are main trafficways to the North-east part of the city. They have overpasses over I-29.Two lane black top roads with ditches for gutters are unacceptable by most standards for cities claiming to have arterial routes.

goob, again i ask, were those roads (as you describe them) in that configuration when the developments were conceived and marketed? think....... i am agreeing with you. the roads are inadequate. the city has "given away the bank" in not imposing impact fees for (fear of driving away) development.

they need to understand that they cannot have it both ways. either market st joseph as a town which no developer would want to come to without those perks, or see this city as having intrinsic value and ask for the same fees from developers as any other city does. i am sick of sitting in meetings and listening to the first choice. this city is not a last gasp, last chance, last option. not by a long shot.

if the purchasers of homes in the newer sections of town had simply had their overall costs to the city rolled into the cost of their homes/developer profits there would be new schools on property granted and partially paid for by the developer ( no private school expense) , fire stations ( lower insurance) , roads (self evident), ..... impact, impact, impact.

238, again, we agree. brick streets are not only historic. they are renewable. they are environmentally more friendly from the point of water runoff. brick streets underneath asphalt without stabilization are a pothole waiting to pop. a brick street which heaves can be corrected with a simple removal of that heave and replacement of the same bricks.

they are harder to do snow removal when allowed to become ..... don't know the technical word, but wavy.

adding layer upon layer of new blacktop is the reason why this city is the city of NO curbs.

Many comments about the DIRECTION of development, no comments or questions as to why.
1. people wanted larger lots, wider streets, room ror 2,3,& 4 car garages.
2. couldn't go west-river, south-stockyards & perpetual flooding, southeast-steep bluffs, so-northeast.
3 REDEVELOPMENT-that is widening streets, etc. doesn't make PROFITS for anyone, is expensive and tough to start politically.
SO-St. Jo is just like any other town I have lived in (20) so why did I come back in 2007--the nice people. so there!!!!