This story was produced by Spotlight Delaware as part of a partnership with Delaware Online/The News Journal. For more about Spotlight Delaware, visit www.spotlightdelaware.org.
Signed into law June 30 by Gov. John Carney, Delaware’s billion-dollar bond bill is sending tens of millions of dollars to downtown Wilmington through a litany of curious appropriations, some buried deep within the epilogue section of the omnibus spending legislation.
There’s more than $18 million to renovate an office building the state purchased in January from Alpha Technologies.
There’s $10 million more for a renovation of a building within the expansive and largely vacant Bracebridge complex, planned as a future home of Widener University’s law school, and other college’s operations.
And, there are unspecified millions of dollars more to fund the pharmaceutical company Incyte’s move into still another of the Bracebridge complex’s office buildings.
The Incyte money adds to $14.8 million that Delaware’s economic development office awarded the company in May for its long-planned relocation of its Pennsylvania satellite office into Wilmington.
In all, the new money could boost Wilmington’s office space market that still faces challenges from a remote work trend that is threatening downtowns across the country. The new money also may boost Carney’s popularity in Delaware’s largest city, just as his campaign to become the next mayor intensifies before a September primary.
Officials from Carney’s administration did not respond to emailed questions for this story.
Despite the significance of it all, state lawmakers did not reveal details about the bond bill’s curious Wilmington appropriations in a celebratory press release issued last week.
Instead, they highlighted the bill’s typical projects, including more than $350 million for road construction, $160 million for school projects, and $100 million more in “deferred maintenance, roof replacement, and capital improvement projects.”
In total, Delaware’s bond bill directs about $1.1 billion to projects across the state.
“This legislation represents a critical investment in Delaware’s infrastructure, Delaware’s job
market and Delaware’s future,” said State Sen. Jack Walsh, D-Stanton, vice chair of the legislature’s Capital Improvement Committee that crafts the bond bill, in a statement.
A new community center campus?
This year’s bond bill was formally introduced into the House of Representatives just three days before its eventual passage out of both chambers in the General Assembly.
Prior to its introduction, lawmakers held committee hearings in which individual appropriations were read aloud. But many of the line items were vague, rendering them almost meaningless to the public.
WILMINGTON DEVELOPMENT: Demolition to (finally) begin for $100+ million, 86-acre Riverfront East project
The $10 million to create a new home for Widener University’s law school – a project planned by the du Pont–family’s influential Longwood Foundation – is listed simply as the “Wilmington Workforce Development Initiative.”
The new money for Incyte states only that a portion of an $11 million slice of money shall fund “new business relocation and development.”
Spotlight Delaware gained clarity on those projects after a spokesman for the Senate Democrats emailed answers to a series of questions.
Further adding to the bond bill appropriations for Wilmington is $12 million for a “building project” carried out by a community center on the Eastside.
The Senate spokesman said the money follows a separate round of state funding last year for the Peoples Settlement Association, a community center and provider of social services, located at 408 E. 8th St.
Last year’s funding round came as part of Carney’s initiative to rebuild the community center into a larger campus, alongside the city’s newest public school, the Maurice Pritchett Sr. Academy, the spokesman said.
Rounding out the most unique bond bill appropriations for Wilmington is $1 million for a design of a new Howard High School stadium, and $1.3 million for maintenance at Abessinio Stadium, as well as for construction of a track and field facility there.
The city of Wilmington owns Abessinio Stadium but leases its use to the private Salesianum High School. A city spokesman said the $1.3 million “goes directly to the school,” but the stadium is open to the public when not in use by Salesianum.
LLC that doesn’t exist?
For years, Delaware’s bond bill has lumped regular construction spending on schools and government offices with curious individual appropriations and authorizations.
In 2019, the legislature quietly gave state economic development officials the authority to hand over millions in taxpayer dollars to developers.
In 2022, they allowed millions of dollars more to flow from an obscure fund of money – which had been seized from corporations – to the Port of Wilmington’s Edgemoor project.
The authorization allowed Carney last month to announce a $195 million gift to the port.
In this year’s bond bill, the obscure pot of seized-corporate money now is being directed to state worker retirement benefits and to the construction of public schools. It is one of a handful of other curious appropriations and authorizations that do not specifically relate to Delaware’s largest city.
There is $10 million to upgrade a state data center in Dover, and $18 million to renovate a shuttered state hospital near Newport into a forensic science facility.
There is also $15 million for a biopharmaceutical research center at the University of Delaware, as well as $4 million taken from a UD laboratory maintenance fund for the “design and upgrade of the softball field.”
Lawmakers also included smaller appropriations in the bond bill, some derived from their individual transportation funds for their legislative districts. One such item was listed only as: “Preserving Our Parks, LLC in an amount of up to $165,000 for a beautification project.”
No such limited liability company exists on the Delaware Secretary of State’s business search page, but Spotlight Delaware learned that the new money will fund a mural in Rep. Debra Hefferan’s (D-Bellefonte) district.
Lastly, there were at least two curious appropriations within this year’s bond bill that related to surveillance.
One gives $25,000 to the town of Laurel to purchase automatic license plate readers, and other “security equipment.”
The bond bill lists the other item as $160,000 “for the Real-Time Crime Center application to enhance safety in and around schools.”
The appropriation was one of the few that sparked a question at a bond bill committee hearing last month.
During the meeting, State Sen. Marie Pinkney (D-New Castle) asked what exactly was the real-time crime center application, but committee staff were unable to answer the question during the hearing.
Pinkney did not respond to a question sent last week, asking what she had learned since about the crime center application.
Spotlight Delaware later learned that it is software produced by a company called Fusus that “extracts and unifies live video, data and sensor feeds from virtually any source” to send to law enforcement.
Carney included the $160,000 appropriation within his recommended budget for the upcoming year.
Land deal authorizations
Some of the language in the Bond Bill doesn’t hand out money, but instead authorizes the government to take new actions.
Among them is an authorization allowing the state to strike a land deal with Bloom Energy, and language that strips New Castle County of its authority to regulate a planned development at a former industrial site near Hockessin.
There also is an authorization that allows Delaware to sell a polluted parcel of land in Newark for $10,000, exclusively to a company called Capital Environmental Services.
The 3.5-acre parcel previously housed a chemical plant that had exploded, according to the minutes of a 2022 meeting of Delaware’s Surplus Property Commission.
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