ORDER-2021-99 : Declaration of a Portion of City -Owned Land along Central Terrace as Surplus Property Available for Disposition via Lease Agreement

Transcript (~12 min @ 23:20)

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▶ 23:12 Jen Grigoraitis: Add that to the record, we have a motion to add correspondence to the record by vice chair, seconded by counselor Eccles. Is there any discussion? Please call the role. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

▶ 23:36 Jen Grigoraitis: Yes, president. Yes. 6, yes, 6, yes, so the motion carries. Thank you. Moving on to our next order of the evening, which I believe Mr. van camp. And you're also joining us for is order 2021 dash 99 declaration of a portion of city owned land along central terrorists. A surplus property available for disposition via lease agreement. Mr. yours.

▶ 24:04 Speaker 3: Yes, thank you. Madam chair this the order before you tonight seeks to declare approximately a 1500 square foot. Parcel of city owned land, which is directly in the rear of the rising equal restaurant. In our downtown business district, and just by way of background. Um, 1 of the things that the administration has been working on both sort of Pre cobit and it has been exacerbated as. We have been dealing with cobit now for the last 12 months. Is the need for not just temporary outdoor dining opportunities in the city of Mars, but for permanent dining outdoor dining opportunities in the city of Melrose. And what we have done is we have identified. This parcel, and I provided the members of the committee, I believe with a, with a map that shows the parcel and then I had our chief assessor do sort of an overlay. To show you what portion of the parcel the city would be seeking to declare surplus for outdoor dining purposes. And so what we have. I tried to do in this context is identify a parcel. Uh, that is, um, is contiguous to our downtown and this 1 is directly behind the rising eagle. Property well, simultaneously not taking parking away from. Our downtown areas that you'll note on 1 of the layouts that I was able to provide. Uh, to the committee that the area we've identified, which is highlighted, it's 1588.7 square feet. Of land, the only thing that would be displaced in that context is a dumpster. The parking that directly abuts that parcel. Would remain, so there's no elimination of parking in order to effectuate this type of. A transaction, so having said that, I also want to just explain to the committee. That as a municipality, we simply can't give away real estate. We can't enter into lease agreements or sell real estate. without going through a very rigid procurement process. And so under chapter 30B of the general laws, specifically section 16, there is a very clearly defined process that the city has to follow to do this. This is the first step in that process. Declaring the parcel surplus basically begins that process. The next step would be to have the value of this real estate determined. And we would use our chief assessor to determine the value of the real estate. Once that valuation process is complete, the city would then issue an RFP. That RFP would be advertised in local newspapers for a period, I believe of 14 days. At that point, parties interested in responding to provide outdoor seating or outdoor dining opportunities here would have the ability to respond. And we would basically under the law be obligated To to provide a lease or enter a lease with the most responsible party offering the greatest value to the community. So, that's sort of the 30 B process that we would be required to follow. Currently, we're anticipating. At least the administration's goal would be for a lease term somewhere between 5 and 10 years. So, we consider it somewhat of a long term lease arrangement. 5 to 10 years that obviously would be subject to. Some level of negotiation. With any responded, but that's sort of the ultimate goal right now is about a 5 to 10 year lease. And again, I just want to stress that when the city issues, the RFP, the request for proposals. The, the restriction will be that a party asked to provide. Outdoor dining for the city. It can't be additional parking or anything. So, if you, the City Council vote to declare this parcel surplus, it would be declared surplus within the limited confines of it being an outdoor dining space. So, happy to answer any questions that members may have.

▶ 28:28 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you Mr. VanCamp and Councillor Tramontozzi.

▶ 28:32 John N. Tramontozzi: Yes, I thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, Mr. Van Kampen. A couple of questions. You said right now that parcel only contains a dumpster and whose dumpster is it?

▶ 28:48 Speaker 3: That dumpster basically sits on private land that I believe it belongs to Rising Eagle, But I, it may it may be on some of the public land there to counselor. Okay. Verify that. All right. It's not a problem. But, um.

▶ 29:08 John N. Tramontozzi: Is there is there a reason why this possible was never used for parking? Is it an awkward shape? Or is it a, if you know, is it was parking never considered an option for that possible?

▶ 29:24 Speaker 3: You know, I don't know the answer to that, but I will say that if you, if you go out to the site and you and you and you walk the site. It's, it's, it looks like a loading area to me. From the, from the naked eye, I'm not exactly sure how it came about that way, but it's simply. Is not currently used for, you know, customer parking.

▶ 29:49 Speaker 6: Republic. All right. So, um.

▶ 29:55 John N. Tramontozzi: Yeah, I don't think I suspect that 1 would not even consider didn't probably know it was city property the way it was. Situated back there and. I'm not really cared for in any particular way, but.

▶ 30:14 Speaker 2: All right, thank you. That's all I had. Thank you. Thank you. Counselor vice chairman.

▶ 30:18 Leila Migliorelli: Thank you, Madam chair. Thank you. Mr. I think this is a great idea. It's a great use of this sort of dead space behind the rising eagle building. I'm just curious now that you propose this. Was there any discussion about the parcel that's right next to it that sort of behind the other building that also looks kind of like a dead area. I don't know if there's I mean, sometimes I see people parking there, but it's also kind of the same situation of a. Like a dead space where you can't, I don't think publicly park, maybe it's used for employee parking, but just curious if that's a whole that whole strip could be developed.

▶ 30:59 Speaker 3: For outdoor dining. Yeah, I think and that's a very good question. I think we're certainly open to. Exploring as many spaces as we can for this type of a purpose. My, my recollection counselor of that space and I'm, I'm sorry, I'm looking at my other screen right now because that's where the map is. But my recollection of that space is that there's some weird topography there. I'm not sure it's actually a flat. I think there's some kind of a sidewalk or something there. So I'm not sure exactly if that would be conducive to. uh the type of outdoor dining that we could accommodate behind the rising eagle building which is a much flatter space but it's a it's a very fair question for example uh the site next to the um soon to be santa fe burrito grill uh which is known as milano park uh there has been discussion about using that space for the same kind of purpose nothing has materialized up to this point uh but um this this particular parcel was identified as prime right now for this type of The, you know, the development, but the space next to it, I hear your question. I'd have to look at it a little more closely. I'm not sure. It's as easily able to be transformed into something like that.

▶ 32:11 Leila Migliorelli: Great, so maybe it's something that could be considered in the future at least. Absolutely. Okay. Thank you.

▶ 32:21 Speaker 3: Councilor McMaster, thank you Madam chair. Good evening. Mr. and thank you for being here. You had said that in considering the proposals that we'd be looking for the most responsible party with the greatest value for the community. Is there a particular set of factors that we are legally bound to look at? Is this an objective criteria or subjective criteria in that evaluation? Well, typically the way a rule for award under 30 B is made is that you establish certain criteria inside the RFP so that when you note when you advertise that RFP to the universe, if you will. Anyone interested in responding knows exactly what criteria the city for the awarding authority would be relying on and making its decision. So, what we would be looking at in this context is. A party that wants to establish an outdoor dining component, we would obviously want to look at design. We would want to look at the type of. You know, the type of materials they would use. In in building something like this, we would want to look at. The the term that they would be interested in leasing the parcel from the city. Or we would look at obviously price what their financial offer would be to the community. So, there are a number of factors that would be taken into consideration counselor, but, you know, the municipality as the awarding authority does have some discretion. To to define the rule for the award. I hope that answers your question. It does. Would we be able to give preference legally to Miller's business owners to current owners? We, we probably, yeah, we could absolutely you could give preference to Melrose owner Melrose business owners. Melrose residents, you could certainly build that into any rule for award.

▶ 34:24 Jen Grigoraitis: Thank you. Thank you come to McMaster any other questions from the council. Okay, what is the will of this committee motion recommend.

▶ 34:38 Jen Grigoraitis: So, we have a motion to recommend made by vice chair secondly, seconded by counselor. McMaster. Is there any discussion? Seeing none, Madam clerk, can you please call the role? Chair? Grigoraitis? Yes, vice chair. Yes. Council. Yes, counselor McMaster. Yes.

▶ 34:58 Speaker 2: Councilor Eccles? Yes. President Cinella? Yes. 6 yes.

▶ 35:06 Jen Grigoraitis: 6 yes, and so the motion carries. Thank you, Mr. VanCampen for joining us tonight. Thank you, Madam Chair.