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Show I t USPS wants RDA land By PAUL CHALLIS News Editor BOUNTIFUL The city's Redevelopment Redevelop-ment Agency has received an amended proposal pro-posal from the U.S. Postal Service to purchase pur-chase Block 29 from Bountiful for a future post office. The latest counter-proposal came in a letter to Bountiful's RDA and seeks exclusive ex-clusive rights to the property and drops the clause in the old bid that Bountiful can withdraw its offer at any time. The RDA board voted 4-1 to table the request re-quest until Wednesday, April 15. The board is still considering a proposal from Land-forms Land-forms Development for a phased project with a double-decker commercial building along Main Street from Center to 100 South. Negotiations are still being worked on with Johansen-Thackeray and Co. for another smaller proposed development for Block 29. Clark Jenkins, who made the proposal in February, plans to come to the April meeting and reinforce his development project and the RDA board would like to hear him out before deciding on the post office proposal. Board member Harold Shafter cast the only opposition vote saying he didn't care to relocate the post office on the RDA property. "I am not in favor of it at all. I don't want to even talk to the post office about it," Shafter said. "I could care less." The letter said the Postal Service is very interested in the Block 29 property but would need four or five months to make the decision. deci-sion. The Postal Service doesn't want to waste time on the RDA's proposal if the exclusion ex-clusion cannot be guaranteed by Bountiful. The letter also said that it didn't want the RDA renting or leasing any of the property in question in the future. "I am not in favor of the new offer,' Board member Leslie Foy said. "We have rentals near the area that would be affected." City Manager Tom Hardy said that the city could keep the current rentals but couldn't have any new ones, if the post officedeal of-ficedeal is approved. "I would like to wait until April 15," Foy said. Board member Renee Coon asked, "just how serious are (Postal Service) they?" Hardy responded by saying the Postal Service won't proceed until it has control. ' To table it might be the best option at this point" Hardy added that the Postal Service is now more serious than it has ever been before. Cushing also wanted to wait a month to give others a chance to finalize proposals for the Block 29 area. "I want to hear Jenkins' proposal before we decide on the post office." of-fice." SEE RDA ON PG.3 RDA CONTINUED FROM PG.l Hardy asked Jenkins to inform the board that his proposal was still solid and serious. "He (Jenkins) is still in the process pro-cess of getting the plans together," Hardy said. "He has firm tenants ready to lease the buildings and has tentative financing." Hardy added that Landforms is awaiting cost estimates and is still actively seeking to finalize the development. de-velopment. Jenkins project would include 10,000 square feet for retail and k commercial development on the ground floor and office space on the top with another 10,000 square feet He added the architectural theme would blend in with the Tabernacle across the street and give the downtown area a pleasing look with landscaping of trees and bushes. JO The Postal Service is looking for an area about 1 80,000 square feet in size near the downtown area and with convenient access to 1-15. The Postal Service is seeking a new home for the Bountiful area that could be used as an operational center for the south Davis County region. The RDA purchased the downtown area on Block 29 for $1.7 million, and it recently was appraised for $850,000. Several of the buildings on the block have been removed reducing the appraised apprais-ed value of the property. The letter asking for the changes C! didn't address the purchase price w which is the recent appraised value of the property. |
