3.25.2025 City Council Committee on Real Estate

Over coming

over.

Hey. Hey.

Hey, hey hey hey.

Hey,

back.

state will come to order. Uh first the open meeting law disclosure. Pursuant to open mean law, any person may make an audio or video recording of this public meeting or may transfer the meeting through any medium. Attendees are therefore advised that such recordings and transmissions are being made whether perceived or unpersceived by those and by those present and deemed acknowledged and

permissible. So call the role please.

Madam cler here, vice president here.

Chair here. First order of business is um citizens input. Has anyone came to sign up? Madam clerk, seeing none. Um item number two, the minutes of November 5th, 2004.

Motion to adopt. Second. Motion made and second. All in favor? I oppose. So voted. Third item.

um back on the real estate agenda for I don't know how many more times, but hopefully we'll we'll get something done this time with it. Um we have uh orders for the disposition of the following municipal properties. A we have 112 Flint Street, former Deval School, and B 138 Hotwell Street, former Sylvia School. So we'll deal with first we'll deal with A the Flint Street Deval School. I ask representatives

administration to come down, please.

Maybe our two attorneys would be uh be fine. And

Mr. Chief, too many attorneys up here.

There's some good ones.

You could please, just for the record, identify yourselves.

Rebecca Pon, purchase agent. Ken Fats, assistant corporation counsel. Matthew Thomas, special counsel. Okay. So, we'll begin um with the uh Deval Street School. Um so, u there's two ways we could proceed with this, right? In terms of whether um it's going to be auction or request for proposals. And I'm assuming that the administration wants to do request for proposals because it is in the middle of a neighborhood. It

is hopefully a viable uh project for someone. Um so if you could just let me Sure. I think attorney FedEette and Miss Pon can give you an update on what's going on. Okay, please do. All right. Uh I'll head it off if I could, Miss Pon.

Um so yeah, so you correctly uh assume that the city is interested uh in the selling of this property. So the request for proposals are going to go out. Um, Miss Pon has been instrumental in obtaining an appraiser for that property. That's going to take place within the next 30 days. There are some requirements in regards to uh both advertising. We do have a letter of engagement from the appraiser who's

going to go uh to the Dev Wall Street School. This is going to bring us into the uh the middle of the final weeks of April into May. Um the appraiser is due to be done some somewhere around the middle of April. We think uh April 17th is a rough date. And then after that advertisements have to go out um uh for the RFPs uh twice uh within a twoe period of time. The usual protocol.

Okay. So So we're following the protocols. We are definitely progressing uh toward the uh the eventual sale of this property and u for the RFPs to go out for that to be accomplished. Okay.

So that's good to hear. Try to predict that the timeline is um in place already and the timeline is it seems like a solid timeline. Any questions for my colleagues? Council Per, I have a question. Uh Rebecca, are you now the city's purchasing agent? I am.

Congratulations. Okay. So that's what you do full-time. I'm still the assistant treasurer as well. So you're doing both? I'm doing both. That is ridiculous in my opinion. I think we should have our own purchasing agent um instead of people bouncing back and forth. Well, that's for budget, too.

Well, I just want to add that. Okay. If you don't mind. Question that I have.

Does anybody know if there's asbestous in the building? What has been done?

Because I heard that there was asbestous. Then I heard there was an asbestous. Do we have any documentation attorney for that? That asbestous was removed from the building. Do we have a receipt from the previous owner of uh what was done? So the answer to each of those questions is going to be no.

There's no documentation right now showing that any type of environmental study has been conducted showing an amount, percentage, or otherwise of asbestos. I can say that the Flint Street Association, I think, did nothing in regards to determining what was in that building uh when they were running the uh uh when they were running their their food pantry and otherwise. Um, those are things that are going to have

to be explored, but we to to honestly answer your question tonight, there's nothing to present here by way of documentation or even personal knowledge on my part regarding the asbestous issue that might exist there. Well, I did attend a Flint neighborhood meeting a few months back where they said that they had spent $3,500 on the removal of asbestous, which I thought was a very small amount. Usually it's much more

than that, but that there was some documentation. So, um, if we could who looks into that to see if there was is that that's part of why I asked for a little bit longer for the appraisal. The other part to that is um just that there isn't as many comparables um for the sale of a school in the area right now.

It's not like before when we disposed of all the other schools. Um, so speaking to the appraiser, um, who's Mark Freighus, um, he typically does this type of work for banks and so forth. So, he was just going to need a little bit of time to really get some market research and we'll look into mass D and try to get, um, an inspection report or have somebody come out to the site to

examine that for you. Well, just in general, but, um, that should satisfy what you're looking for.

Thank you. Uh, but that building is secured to our knowledge. Is that all boarded up so nobody can get in there?

to our knowledge at this time. I do believe it's okay. And I know that people in the neighborhood were you were utilizing the yard for parking. Um, are they still being allowed to do that or not? I'm only asking that to see if there's any liability if something happened. I don't think we've put anything in place to deter that. No, there's no there's no blocking of the entrances into I think there's there's

two entrances or an entrance and an exit. Um we I went and did my best. Some folks were paying monies that I don't think were um ever authorized to be paid for parking. It was not something the city was running back when the city possessed a property. It was free parking in there for the folks in that community. Only it was the folks at the uh uh at the Flint u associate neighborhood association that imposed a

fee. And I received a number of calls in the law office and to each person I said I don't think uh the city is not collecting these fees. We actually have no accounting for where that money went and and what's being done with it. So I anytime anybody called I said you're as far as I'm concerned if you park there you shouldn't be paying a fee for it. Uh

but pay in the things may change in the future as to whether you're going to have access to the property for parking.

Um but that nothing has changed in the last several months that I'm aware of.

All right. Thank you. I yield. Thank you. Just because it's in line with what she asked before, council can um any insurance on the building. So, we're looking into that and and uh I'd like to see what happened to Sylvia and hopefully we have some coverage there.

So, yeah. So, jumping to the Sylvia school. I know that there there there's an ongoing uh process right now. The insurance companies have been uh or insurance company has been uh notified.

There's no definitive numbers to give this board tonight. I wouldn't do that.

Um but um we we have progressed in regards to a discussion. Um I don't know if if sorry to cut you off but on devol are you aware of any insurance on a devol or or would it apply to all the schools if we have any? I believe all the schools.

Okay. Sean wants to say something also um you might want to look at the prior appraisal if there's any contamination might be reported in that.

So council. Uh so just in terms of the RFP are we just looking for the highest bid or we actually looking for proposals? So request for proposals. I think it's request for proposals and evaluation criteria. Have we determined what the evaluation criteria is going to be? They'll typically be the the matrix that you normally see that'll be looking at experience what they're looking to do

things like that. It hasn't been drafted yet. I don't believe that there's one from before but the this hasn't been finalized for this property but it would be a matrix where you get points for certain things right as to being um highly advantageous advantageous or not advantageous y so I was just curious as to what those categories are so if you get that can you just send it to the

committee and then so I I see the order says that there are no restrictions so we're not going to put any restrictions on for educational purposes or historical purposes or anything like that in terms of development my understanding is not at this time there's none decided although there may be um restrictions if they don't develop it. Um so that unfortunately revert to clauses. Yeah. Um we've exercised

reverted clauses way too many times. Uh but um it's the only way to try to get something done. Okay. I yield. Thank you. Okay. So um we need a vote on this to authorize request proposals. So yeah.

Okay. Motion request for proposal. Do we submit it? Second. And um anything along with that motion call? Um okay. Uh motion made and second. All in favor?

I oppose. So voted. Mr. Chair, I don't know if you have Do you have a new business spot here? I do I'd like to brief you on one thing. Not look for a vote, but just give you a briefing on what police station. Yes, please. Okay.

Is that okay? Well, it's not on the Not on the agenda. All right. Well, you know, I'm not looking to have you act on it, just to let you know. But that's okay. Quick, go ahead. All right. In a nutshell, on the council agenda tonight, you'll see the deed in Lou. Uh this is unfortunately the second time I've gotten this back for the city now. Let's and I think this is probably the last

time that it's going to go back and forth. So there was a deed in loo from uh letter um from Weather Weathersfield.

It's on the agenda. If the council could see fit to pass it to accept it tonight, that'd be great and not have to send it to committee. Um, we um also got back from them all of their um all of their environmentals that they had done.

Unfortunately, the building's loaded with asbestous. That probably should cause you to stop you at that point.

Yeah, I know. I figured I'd ask. Your message is already.

Doesn't hurt to ask.

Was a good try though. I figured I'd try.

Yeah, it would. Yeah. a motion to adopt the order and um and as council per said authorized request proposals. Okay. So uh item number uh 3B um the Hotwell Street School of the former Sylvia school. So same questions for my point namely insurance. Um we have any exploring that? I did mention that to the mayor the day after the fire. He wasn't sure. I urge him to explore that.

he has I mean we may we may have some some coverage on that fire that's my understanding as well again this is not uh it would be premature to give the any kind of figure as to an expectation of what but uh we are exploring insurance and just how much um the idea is to take down the the burned out uh building leaving two other parcels but again Miss Pon let me uh applaud her efforts in

obtaining for the city emergency waiverss of both the uh uh the process of sending out for for bids for the demolition as well as the advertising requirements for it. The state has granted us um letters have been submitted by both our building inspector, Mr. Hathaway, as well as the uh fire chief. Uh this is a dangerous building. It needs to come down. It needs to come down as soon as possible,

as safely as possible. Uh and um one of the clear questions is will there be insurance to to uh cover some of those costs? in any in any way or shape or form we need to get that building down.

Is the state given us any timeline to demolish because it's open now, right?

So since it's an open edifice, there is more contamination there would be if it was encapsulated. I'm not aware of any date that's been uh uh mandated by the state to have the building down by. We have our own incentives here within the city uh to take a dangerous attractive nuisance uh which which poses not just to people going in the building but we have a you know we have an exit ramp to

a to a highway that passes right by. So what is the what is the uh timeline for demolition? How is it this spring? So, I think it's it's I think that would be safe, but I'm going to leave that. Maybe Miss Bon can help me out with the timeline on So, um based on the scope of work from the building inspector, what he's recommended, we're looking to expedite it within 30 days. Um there's a

few issues um with Mass D, we need we need kind of like a non-traditional work plan for it because of the asbestous and the ability to structurally to access certain parts of the building. We also have to maintain just building two being demolished and no um damage uh relating to building one complex um because that was not part of the waiver. We only wanted to seek what we could just to

maintain that emergency situation as fast as possible. Um that's why we're seeking um that's why we need the order to be able to then dispose of the property because once that um emergency part is situated, we want to kind of get rid of this as soon as we can. Um, and I did receive word back um, from the insurance that we're we're a go to start demolition. They got all the pictures

and every evidence that they needed to be able to for our insurance claim so we can proceed. Um, so we should be releasing those plans as early as um, tomorrow. Um, I have everything worked up and um, ready to go and then we're looking to have um, answers back within 7 days. Good. um anything longer than that it we're really kind of we could have gone out to bid at that point. Um

so we just want to try to expedite it. I have a list of I think 20 um vendors, demolition vendors that typically do that kind of work. Um we still have to um they still have to be dam certified.

We still have to do prevailing wage. We still have to meet our diversity requirements. So the only thing the waiver is going to cover is actually the advertisement and the bidding process.

Um so we're actually going above and beyond what we're what we really have to do for the process. just because we don't want anything to go wrong with Sylvia this time around. And if the the same as the other school we discussed the insurance I mean if we don't have insurance on the police station on the armry on on the vault school we we should get it we should buy it

um because I think the nature of um this criminal it's criminal activity with people set fires I mean and I think that they allegedly you well they did charge some adolescence um But it's it's uh definitely I I wouldn't like to see the armory go down. That's for sure. My understanding is that there's a provision in the insurance for other buildings, unnamed unnamed buildings. So there are certain named

buildings in the insurance, but there's also this provision for unnamed buildings which is kind of like a coverall that I think that's how Sylvia is being done. You can keep the entire city council um through a letter from your office once you discover there is insurance. Right. My my colleagues motion to adopt the order. Second adopt the order for request for proposals.

Thank you.

Motion to adjurnn. Second. Thank you everyone.