The Carmel City Council delayed a vote on issuing $19 million in tax increment financing bonds to support the Proscenium III mixed-use development to give councilors and city officials more time to review the project’s expected impact on traffic and other details.
The project, planned on the northwest corner of Range Line Road and Executive Drive, is proposed to include an upscale hotel, office space, apartments, retail and an underground parking garage. It is set to be developed through a public private partnership between Birkla Investment Group and the Carmel Redevelopment Commission.
At the Aug. 19 city council meeting, some councilors said they didn’t like the idea of building apartments adjacent to Carmel City Hall and asked CRC Director Henry Mestetsky if the project could be altered to remove them and add more office, hotel or green space.
“If the project is not apartments, office and hotel all above a parking garage, then the whole thing falls apart,” Mestetsky said.
Councilor Matt Snyder said he could not support the project if the CRC is not willing to listen to feedback from Carmel residents and councilors about the proposal.
“When you say things that without doing it my way, there’s no project, then there is no project for me. I do not like that. There is always a way to work through things,” Snyder said. “So, when given the ultimatum, you do it this way, or there’s no project at all, then I guess, from my perspective, there is no project at all.”
Snyder also expressed concern that the development does not have enough parking spaces as proposed.
Mestetsky said the 508 spaces proposed in the parking garage are sufficient because of the proposed uses for the development, but he requested additional time to gather more information.
“This project only works because you have different users parking in the same parking spaces at different times,” he said. “This project is delivering a large parking garage, essentially free to use for the public adjacent to city hall.”
TIF funds, which would be used to pay for the garage, are proposed to be split with 95 percent going to the developer and 5 percent going to the city. TIF uses tax revenue generated by improvements to a site to pay down the debt acquired to make the improvements.
The council plans to review information sent shortly before the meeting from Chief Infrastructure Officer Jeremy Kashman about traffic related to the development before voting on the bonds at a future meeting.
Proscenium III is proposed to include 60,000 square feet of office space for corporate headquarters and 15,000 square feet of retail space, with 4,000 square feet being designated for businesses owned by minorities, women or veterans.
