Who will the council pick? Hines or Archstone

Archstone has to be a heavy, heavy favorite, but stranger things have happened.

The City Council is expected to start their weekly meeting in a few minutes, and the Tropicana Field RFP question is pretty high up on the agenda. We know the folks from Archstone will be in the audience. We expect Hines will be represented here, too.

Keep checking back to see what happens.

UPDATE (3:05 p.m.) --- The meeting is just starting. Council member Jeff Danner is reading a proclamation recognizing St. Pete Pride. (For St. Petersburg regulars, the Pride proclamation is one of the very few, if only proclamation in the city that Mayor Rick Baker does not sign).

UPDATE (3:15 p.m.) -- Trop discussion just now getting underway. The city's lead negotiator, Rick Mussett, is on vacation. So economic development director Dave Goodwin is taking the mic. Mayor Rick Baker just also walked in.

UPDATE (3:35 p.m.) -- Council members are now launching into their questions for staff.

UPDATE (3:55 p.m.) -- City Council member Karl Nurse, praising the Archstone selection, and comparing it the failed developers of Bay Plaza: "The strength of Archstone group is like 25 times, 50 times stronger than the Bay Plaza group."

UPDATE (4:20 p.m.) -- The meeting, no offense, is turning into a pretty boring event. A camerawoman with channel 10 is sleeping the front row.

UPDATE (4:30 p.m.) -- Council selects Archstone-Madison 5-1. Herb Polson voted 'yes.' It was Leslie Curran who voted 'no.'

(City Council chairman Jamie Bennett is away on vacation, so vice chairman Jeff Danner is running the meeting).

-- Aaron Sharockman, Times Staff Writer

Comments

[John]

They should pick neither. Since neither have agreed in principal to pay off the Trop debt up front and in full before proceeding with any development.

[Colorado Snowbird]

Any predictions?

I can't see the Council going against City Staff, who has done the work. That is not to say they cannot or would not do so, only that it doesn't seem like their is any legitimate basis for doing what will look like a huge political favor to Hines and the Rays.

[get-smart]

AAron this is a good one.

My moneys on Hines. I haven't yet heard the "Fat Lady" singing.

[The KOOK antidote]

John's position is that the City should refuse to negotiate further with a developer who is only a few million dollars away from the City's target price?

Okey dokey.

[Rick K]

I agree wholeheartedly, KOOK, your post is right on the money.

John and the other ANTI's have no purpose being on here messing up our circle-jerk for the Rays and their paired redevelopment proposals.

[Colorado Snowbird]

The post at 3:36 pm is a fake, made by a child who is impersonating Rick K in an attempt to deceive others.

[since1962]

GOD told Baker not to sign proclmation Aaron. He leaves the chamber too. Cooties or proclmation paper cuts I think.The economic impact or mix DOES have its limits as CLEARLY refleced in this blog.
Limits EXCLUDING the relativly few baseball fans compared to the MILLIONS of countywide tourists paying bed tax and the the 250,000 inhabitants of Pinellas.

[Colorado Snowbird]

Text from Rick K (at 3:30) just received: City Council now questioning Trop development, Aaron is here

[Losers With No Life]

Not sure what I'm doing down here among the journalists & politicians ... I can see why they're down here. I guess since I don't have a job or a social life I'll go down and listen to the City Council meeting!

[Right]

Because only a loser pays attention to these issues, attends City Counil meetings, or posts on blogs like this.

Can you make any more self-defeating points?

[Watching City Council]

City staff just laid waste to the myth that these redevelopment proposals are not interdependent and linked.

[since1962]

An approval of a "concept" as part of referendum not yet voted on that has divided the city and diverted important staff resources.

Jackasses before the cart.

The Rays dont have time or answers yet taxpayer funded stafftime is freely abused.

[Unspinning 1962]

The 4:21 PM poster is, as usual, off.

This Ordinance City Council is considering is times precisely right. The answers will be forthcoming in due course. Why do those who will not vote for this stadium insist on managing how those who have not similarly made up their minds to oppose this go about doing that?

City Council is voting now.

[since1962]

CART BEFORE THE JACKASSES

[since1962]

The manipulation continues.

Legal has exposed the reason for todays vote and the referendum language which WILL include the purty trop PROPOSAL, WATERFRONT STADIUM and not require 6 votes as in past substantial change issues.

[since1962]

Now Council will change rules for PUBLIC comment as a result of THIS issue.

The RAYS have won the circumvention of the DEMOCRATIC process.

RECALL
RECALL
RECALL

[Ray F]

Is it just me or was council member Curran being pretty obnoxious with her comments and chuckles???

I get that she is against the new stadium, great. But, Christ, how high on her horse does she have to get???

Talk about being unfit for public service. If she's that good at heckling, maybe she needs to sit in the outfield and razz opposing players.

(or our players, since she obviously doesn't give 2 steamy turds about the Rays)

[since1962]

Questions and analysis are not "razz" .
"RAZZ" is the moronic off subject, juvenile blog bloating postings that do nothing to advance the issue.

[1962]

since1962 - Are you gay?

[John]

Leslie Curran is showing she's Mayor material.

I especially liked Herb Polson's vote:

"Yeah, yeah" (As in yeah, here's my yes vote to a deal that will be dead by August).

[since1962]

Aaron

Sorry that by 4:20 the media found the meeting boring but hope that the legal issue of SINGLE SUBJECT referendum language,required number of council votes for passage as compared to DALI project AND CHANGES to public comment rules as a result of THIS issue ALL DISCUSSED AFTER THE VOTE will be examined and reported by the TIMES.

[get-smart]

The city staff takes the word of the Archstone salesmen who claims there is no connection between Lehman and Archstone.

These guys are liars.

Apparently, the city staff nor the council spent 5 minutes on researching the guys they are giving one billion dollars to.

http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/stories/2008/06/09/daily18.html

Lehman wants to unload Archstone. The problem is Archstone is wallowing in debt. The mayor, staff and council need to be removed from office.

-PS No Waterfront Stadium!

-

[Jon McPhee]

Hey, Ray F, I wonder -- do you think Dick (Less) Cheney, who thinks it's just cool to tell a senior Senator to "Go f___ yourself," is "unfit for public service"?

And I'm sure it's just cool for every member of the Council who happens to agree with your view of the world and nods a head and smiles at the special-pleader and winks and nudges, is perfectly so fit?

Hey, we're tribal creatures, right? Let's just all kill each other, and let our tribal gods sort us all out.

Other than the worthless trash that fills up the post partum of each thread here, at least we seem to be getting a little bit of the promised stream of the "latest from the ongoing debate, focusing on the impact to taxpayers, the evolution of the Rays’ proposal and the politics unfolding behind the scenes." Although if Aaron has an "in" on what's going on behind the scenes, as a member of the Fourth Estate I don't see too much of the last part. Who is Ed Armstrong strong-arming and feathering, for instance?

I guess we'll be like earlier inhabitants of this area -- whose dwellings went up on the burial sites of their forebears and the shells of their perfect raw oysters.

[since1962]

~930,000 Pinellas COUNTY residents...

~250,000 St Pete residents...

Millions of NON Rays fan tourists far into the future...

Should NOT be held hostage to the relatively SMALL number of RAYS fans at the expense of OUR ECONOMY.

[The Real Rick K (with DNA to prove it)]

Since 1962's latest line of reasoning has it exactly backwards.

What is at stake here is at least a billion dollars, and probably more, in construction in downtown St. Pete in the next five to ten years, plus the billions in additional taxes and economic growth from these two redeveloped parcels of land.

ANYONE who opposes these paired redevelopment proposals should be required (I would say by law, even) to come up with a reliable plan for replacing the revenues we would lose if we don't pursue these paired proposals.