COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The Coldwater City Council is scheduled Monday night to take action on a pair of items involving the proposed “Lofts at Milnes Plaza” apartment development project.
They will be asked to approve a contract for the sale of the Milnes Plaza Parking Lot from the city to Spire Development of Columbus, Ohio.
The City’s 2017 Master Plan provided that the Milnes Plaza parking lot was within a targeted neighborhood revitalization area.
As part of a $1 transaction to buy the parking lot, the developers have agreed to reconstruct the remainder of the lot after the apartment building is sited on the land.
A preliminary site plan is calling for 126 parking spaces as part of the development.
Current plans are calling for 32 of the planned 50 apartment units to have two bedrooms. Eleven would have one bedroom while the other seven would have three bedrooms.
The proposed four story apartment project has not had smooth sailing. It got turned down by the Coldwater Planning Commission last September. After the City Council adopted an addition to the city zoning ordinance which would allow multi-family residential uses within the C-2 Central Business District, a preliminary site plan and a special use permit were approved on a 4-2 vote last month by the Planning Commission.
There have also been questions about parking and whether the project will really revitalize downtown Coldwater which has nearly two dozen empty stores.
Downtown building owner Steven Rish blasted city officials last month as he claimed there were toxins under the Milnes Plaza and Upson parking lots that he found out about several years ago after filing a Freedom of Information Act request with the Michigan Department of Enviromental Quality.
The Council will also be asked to pass a resolution and an agreement for a Payment In Lieu of Taxes policy for the project.
Such a policy offers an alternative to the traditional calculation for payment of local property taxes for eligible multiple family and other special residential projects. The city has previously used this type of policy for two phases of the Whispering Pines Apartments and for the Meadowview Senior Apartments.
The “Lofts at Milnes Plaza” project would be funded in part through Low Income Housing Tax Credits that would be financed, if approved, by the Michigan State Housing Development Authority.
