Sonny Bonacio, owner of Bonacio Construction, faced a half hour of scrutiny before the Saratoga Springs City Council finally voted to award the bid for the sale of the Broadway parking lot adjacent to Lillian’s Restaurant for $750,000.
Accounts Commissioner John Franck, Finance Commissioner Matt McCabe and Public Works Commissioner Tom McTygue vote for the sale. Mayor Valerie Keehn and Public Safety Commissioner Ron Kim voted against it.
Bonacio Construction was the only business to submit a plan to develop the deteriorating parking lot at 420 Broadway, where currently up to 40 cars can park. A second offer of $850,000 came in from Joseph D. Boff of Florida Life Homes in Marco Island, Fla., but that offer did not satisfy the city’s request for proposals and was dismissed.
Bonacio offered the city $750,000 for the lot, where he plans to build a basement garage with parking for 31 vehicles, retail space on the first floor, offices on the second floor and residential units on the third and fourth floors. The building would encompass 62,000 square feet.
McTygue is proposing using the revenue from the sale of the lot to generate 400 or more parking spaces on Woodlawn Avenue.
McCabe’s vote came after about 30 minutes of debate that started when he said he could not support the sale unless some of the provisions in Bonacio’s proposal were deleted. The commissioner was concerned with clauses that called for a waiver of all city fees on the sale, and wanted clarity on what would happen with the parking spots and property tax until Bonacio broke ground on his proposed retail/condominium building.
These are all things that have to be in place before I can support this, said McCabe, after the motion was made by Franck to award the bid.
McCabe proposed the closing of the sale be postponed until January of next year.
`This season, I think it’s paramount that we leave the parking there,` he said.
Bonacio said he did not expect to break ground on the property until September 2008, so the city would continue to have the parking lot for the next two track seasons. This then brought into question of how the city would assess the property tax on a piece of property in its first year on the tax rolls that the city is continuing to use.
McTygue suggested waiving the property tax while the lot is in the city’s use. Franck agreed. `My feeling is that the city’s not collecting taxes on it now, so there will be no loss of revenue,` said Franck.
Bonacio agreed to pay the city’s fees while the city and his lawyers hash out the details of waiving property tax.
Keehn and Kim took issue with the sale, saying that it was a `piecemeal` approach to the city’s wider parking issue.
`I’ve been lukewarm to this proposal from the beginning,` said Keehn. `Why should we take away parking without a plan in place to replace that parking?`
Keehn proposed not awarding the bid, as the city was not legally bound to do so.
Franck decried her approach, saying it was `bad business practice` for the city to request proposals for projects and let them languish. He added that the city has hosted three informational sessions regarding the sale in addition to its being discussed at City Council meetings.
He said the council members’ inaction on this and other issues would likely cost them their jobs come election time.
`If we can’t get a plan and get parking built within two years, we shouldn’t be here,` Franck said.
When construction commences, Bonacio will make 31 spaces available to the public in a section of the Price Chopper lot, which the company leases. `I believe delaying this is tantamount to further delaying a solution to parking,` McCabe said before casting the deciding vote. `I’m siding with good development here.“
