Mayor Jean Stothert wants to ask Omaha voters to approve issuing $333 million in general obligation bonds for city capital improvement projects, including $100 million to help pay for expanding the CHI Health Center.
The $100 million for the city’s convention center and arena is one of several new projects that would be funded by a bond package Stothert submitted to the City Council this week. The list also includes $20 million for a combined police precinct and fire station downtown, and $20 million for an new outdoor gun range for Omaha police.
The City Council will have a public hearing Tuesday on ordinances that would put the proposed bond package to voters. The council is scheduled to vote on it July 30. If the council approves the ordinances, the bond issues would be placed on Omahans’ ballots for the Nov. 5 general election.
The city has regularly asked voters to approve multimillion-dollar general obligation bond packages for capital improvement projects. Voters almost always say yes, most recently to $260 million in bonds in 2022.
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This would be the largest ask in recent history. The timing and size are driven largely by the $100 million Stothert wants authority from citizens to borrow in order to pay the city’s share, about half, of the CHI Health Center expansion cost.
The city doesn’t currently have enough bond authorization from voters to meet its obligations for the convention center and other projects, City Finance Director Steve Curtiss said.
He and Stothert said the bonds would not raise the city’s property tax levy. Stothert said she will propose a reduction in the city’s property tax levy for 2025 when she submits her budget to the council Tuesday. She said it will be a larger reduction than the 2.1% decrease she proposed for 2024.
The package includes six parts, sorted by categories:
Public facilities — $146 million for the CHI Center project, downtown police and fire station and the police outdoor gun range.
Transportation — $80.9 million for local match of federal funds on such projects as improving Fort Street from 120th Street west to the Tranquility Park entrance, including a new bridge; replacing the Saddle Creek Road and Dodge Street overpass; building the Enterprise Park Roadway truck route near 11th and Locust Streets and improving 180th Street from Harney to Arbor Streets.
Street preservation — $72 million to continue the accelerated street repair and maintenance program that voters initially authorized with $200 million in bonds in 2020. The money pays for construction and reconstruction projects throughout the city.
Environmental (sewer) — $14.5 million for such projects as neighborhood storm sewers and drainage, Missouri River flood control and channel stabilization. These bonds do not pay for the city’s ongoing Combined Sewer Overflow program.
Public safety — $10 million for new fire department vehicles and police vehicles.
Parks and recreation — $10 million for purchasing land and building new facilities.
Stothert
None of the bonds are for the streetcar, Stothert said.
Most of the projects funded by the bond issues are in the city’s current five-year Capital Improvement Program. The CHI Health Center expansion, police/fire station and gun range will be in the new Capital Improvement Program, which will be released Tuesday.
“This bond issue hopefully will fund us in the CIP for the next four years,” Stothert said.
She noted almost 50% of the bond issue would be for roads.
More meeting rooms, better look for convention center
As The World-Herald first reported in March, the Metropolitan Entertainment and Convention Authority and Stothert administration have been working toward a $175 million convention center expansion.
The project would add 24 more meeting rooms and enhance the appearance of the Missouri River side of the facility. The goal would be to help Omaha compete for bigger conventions and meetings along with the visitors — and tourist dollars — they bring.
Shareholders queue outside the CHI Health Center during the 2024 Berkshire Hathaway Shareholder Shopping Day in Omaha on Friday, May 3, 2024.
“We can get a whole new level of conventions that we are missing out on because we don’t have enough meeting rooms,” Stothert said.
She added, based on information from studies MECA and the Omaha Convention and Visitors Bureau has done: “They’ll more than double the number of meeting rooms and we’d be able to get a whole new level of conventions that will bring a lot more people and a lot more revenue into the city.”
The arena would receive some renovations as well.
Asked what makes the CHI expansion a worthy project for city taxpayers’ investment, Stothert said the city owns the convention center and arena and pays the debt on it. The original bonds approved by voters for the convention center and arena will be paid off in 2027.
“The arena and convention center has been very, very successful… bringing in tons and tons of revenue to our city,” Stothert said. “We want to keep that going.”
‘We need a new police precinct downtown’
The downtown police and fire station is not the new police and fire headquarters the city has been talking about for years. That headquarters is a much bigger project.
The city is still working on the headquarters, “looking at getting it designed so we know basically how much it’s going to cost, what it’ll look like, where it could be,” Stothert said.
“But we need a new police precinct downtown if we are going to remove, which we eventually will, the central (police) station that’s down there now,” she said. “The same thing with the fire station downtown.”
She said police have more calls in the urban core now.
“And as it continues to grow, we feel like we need an additional fire station where we can dispatch downtown,” Stothert said.
The gun range would north of Omaha near Fort Calhoun. It’s needed to replace the Omaha Police Department’s current outdoor gun range in the Elkhorn area.
The city has received a lot of complaints as more people move into the area around the current gun range.
“The one that is out in Elkhorn, which is used a lot, is too close to where residents live and where development is happening, and they can hear it,” Stothert said.
She said police really prefer an outdoor range as opposed to an indoor one, because the conditions outside are more like those they’d be facing outside on the job.
Stothert said there’s space at the city’s police and fire training center on Rainwood Road, but that is also is near a populated area, so the city could only put an indoor range there.
The City Council is scheduled to vote July 30 on the ordinances that would put the bond package on the ballot.
The Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce will lead a bond issue campaign named Building Omaha’s Future. The mayor and other city officials cannot campaign for such bond issues, they’re only allowed to provide information.
Our best Omaha staff photos & videos of July 2024
Fireworks follow the Omaha Storm Chasers game at Werner Park in Papillion on Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
People play with glowsticks as they watch fireworks after the Omaha Storm Chasers game at Werner Park in Papillion on Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
The two buildings at the bottom of the photo at the Southside Terrace apartments in Omaha will soon be demolished as part of phase I of the Southside Terrace Redevelopment project on Tuesday, July 9, 2024.
Milton Kitchen, of Omaha, right, hands out water balloons to a group at a hydrant party on 28th and Harrison Street in Omaha, on Wednesday, July 3, 2024.
Tethloach Ranley, of Omaha, grates cured egg yolk onto tartare with pickled shallots paired with nettle tortillas chips and local corn crackers for the first course from V. Metz at the Battle of the Chefs at Long Walk Farm in Council Bluffs, on Sunday, July 7, 2024.
Vicki Nordskog, of Atlantic, Iowa, left, Denise O’Brien, of Atlanta, Iowa, and Marcus Josephson, of Griswold, Iowa, grab plates from V. Metz’s second course at the Battle of the Chefs at Long Walk Farm in Council Bluffs, on Sunday, July 7, 2024.
Milk Ruiz, left, Jade Monroe, Nevaeh Parker and Grace Johnson, all of Omaha, cool off and rest before the Fourth of July parade in Ralston, on Thursday, July 4, 2024.
The Corvette Club drives down Main Street at the Fourth of July parade in Ralston, on Thursday, July 4, 2024.