Currently, 302 Jefferson Street LLC owes the local economic development corporation more than $2.3 million on the property. In June of 1993, the state Division of Administration donated the property, at the corner of Jefferson and Vine streets, to LNEDC. In the Act of Donation, dated June 1993, the value of the property is listed as $45,900. Six months later, in December, 302 Jefferson Street LLC signed a $1.2 million deferred mortgage agreement with LNEDC on the property. Essentially, LNEDC turned the property over to HRI to redevelop as low income apartments. HRI was able to obtain and sell approximately $5 million worth of tax credits through the Louisiana Housing Finance Agency to fund the renovation expenses. (The tax credits were purchased by Premier Bank, which is now Chase.) It qualified for the tax credits by addressing both downtown historic restoration and affordable housing needs.
The mortgage stipulated that HRI would manage the property and pocket all revenue from the apartments for a 15-year period — later amended to 16 years — at which point HRI, or 302 Jefferson Street LLC, would have the option of purchasing the property. Because the purchase price agreed to now totals approximately $2.36 million — a $1.2 million mortgage balance and $1.16 in additional interest accrued at 6 percent a year (HRI also paid a $50,000 sum up front) — most expected the property would eventually revert to LNEDC. The note matured March 1 of this year.
LNEDC Board President Joe Dennis says his organization is interested in taking over the property and also in moving management of the building away from HRI and over to C.S. Management Inc., a local firm that is already handling LNEDC’s other property, Sterling Grove Apartments. Dennis added that any profit generated from the apartments would help fund LNEDC’s small business loans.
Abbenante, meanwhile, is still optimistic HRI will keep some stake in the property.
“We love the property,” Abbenante says. “We love the residents and what’s happened down there. Fifteen years ago, that was kind of a barren end of town, and look how vibrant it’s become now. And our residents I think are part of that. We’re happy to have been a part of it for 15 years and hope we get the opportunity to stay with it.”
MAY 21 Gambit columnist Clancy DuBos writes about the Mother's Day shooting, and how the stages of shock and blame and healing mirror those traveled by the same city following Hurricane Katrina. The city will recover, just as it did following the storm, by reaching out to help the people injured most seriously by the event, DuBos writes. It's how we heal, he says.
MAY 21 Here's a post on the Advocate (but buried on a subpage, not on the front) that reports something Louisiana Voice reported some time ago: a top DOE official lives in Los Angeles and "commutes" to Baton Rouge. The positioning of the story caused a stir on Facebook Monday, with several posters asking if the Advocate was covering someone's hiney. Sentell's stories on DOE are notoriously soft, and this one is no different: don't expect any hard questions in here.
MAY 21 Here's another post from blogger Tom Aswell about the "course choice" program. He's already reported on kids being signed up without their consent or knowledge, and has more here: For example, he tells of a six-year-old who was signed up for high school Latin. He also digs a little deeper into the sister companies of the main one operating in Louisiana; all of them seem to have complaints against them. Stinky.
MAY 21 Given the 80 percent cut in higher ed funding since he's been in office, it's clear Gov. Jindal would rather give tax cuts to out of state companies than have a functioning system, blogger Dayne Sherman argues in this post. The cuts have been such a disaster, Sherman says, that it will take 30 years to fix what's been broken. He says he believes the aim is to shut down most of the schools before Jindal leaves in 2016.
MAY 21 Blogger CB Forgotston says there are too many elections in Louisiana, and they're costing us too much money. The proof is in the pudding: turnout for most of these nonsensical pollings gets worse and worse, CB opines, even as millions of dollars that could be spent on health care or higher ed go down the tubes. The legislature must take action to stem the tide of pointless elections, he says.
MAY 21 Here's an interesting investigative piece by WVUE on the retirement benefits of some Jefferson Parish public employees. According to the story, the taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the retirement contributions of employees who started work prior to a certain date in April 1986 -- and have done for more than 30 years. It costs the parish millions annually, and might not be legal, the story reports.
MAY 21 This post on Bayou Buzz provides insight from Louisiana's intrepid pollster, Bernie Pinsonat, on the winners and losers from this year's legislative session. But to hear Bernie tell it, there's almost nuttin but losers: Jindal, the Republican party, the Fiscal Hawks all get big goose eggs in his win column.
MAY 20 This post on The Lens takes a look at a huge (either $500K or $250K) bill that one NOLA charter now has for school lunches. The RSD says the charter group didn't fill out the proper paperwork for federal reimbursement, but the story details how the RSD didn't ensure the people running the charter had the proper training, despite requests from hapless charter employees trying to fill out forms. Either way, somebody's asleep at the wheel.
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And boy does this sound similar to another development right around the corner.....hope we don't see the same struggle in 15 years in that business structure as this one.......