Tuesday night, East Lansing City Council met with Strathmore Development Co. President Scott Chappelle for the first time since the council voted in favor a pre-development agreement on the City Center II project.
In a previous meeting, the council had agreed to allow Chappelle to begin demolition of a building located at 303 Abbot Road, provided he complete a due-diligence report. Tuesday’s meeting was scheduled to discuss several points of concern Chappelle had with the possibility of some of that information becoming open to the public.
Specifically, Chappelle said the possibility that the names of the project lenders or prospective tenants could become public could potentially harm the development. He said opponents to City Center II have contacted some of those lenders to criticize the project, which could cause them to reconsider their investments.
However, councilmember Victor Loomis raised an issue with Chappelle’s request to keep the lenders’ identities secret for too long.
“I can appreciate your wanting to keep a lender under wraps for a period time, but I can state unequivocally that I will not vote for any development agreement without knowing who that lender is,” he said.
Loomis added that while Chappelle might be experiencing some hardships with his lender’s being contacted, those lenders should be allowed to make an educated decision, weighing the pros and cons of the deal as a whole.
Councilmember Don Power said if Chappelle was allowed to keep information out of the public realm, the council would fail to protect the interests of the citizens of East Lansing.
“This reminds the negotiator at the table who tells me that health insurance costs are over the top and he wants me to pay 40 percent more,” Power said in a prepared statement. “I ask for the rates to confirm or develop alternatives and he tells me ‘no.’ Guess what, Mr. Negotiator? Your word is supposed to be your bond.”
Following Power’s statement, he and Chappelle exchanged a somewhat heated back-and-forth before Mayor Diane Goddeeris asked for comments from other councilmembers.
Mayor Pro Tem Nathan Triplett said he agreed with Power’s solution that the council let the data make the decision.
“I would like to let the data drive the answer and I think the best way to do that is move forward with the plan that has been outlined,” he said. “If the information that’s presented is insufficient for any one of us to make a decision if that project is in the best interest in the city, I would say we say ‘no.’”
As the meeting came to a close, the council agreed to continue further discussion at its next work session, scheduled for May 22 at 7 p.m.
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