David Chauner, “I think what our interest, rather than going through the whole presentation we did the last time, is to let you know where we are in the projects. We are very interested in fast tracking the project. We are obviously very into the Coatesville site, although we are looking at other sites in Chester County. We have secured additional seed money financing from… our financial partners. We are ready to start going to actual drawings, engineering studies and so on. What we would request from the City of Coatesville is an opportunity for the next 60 days is to sit down with your people and discuss the feasibility of this project on the flatlands. Discuss what the terms of an arrangement might be for procuring property and how we might go about that. At the end of 60 days, if we haven’t reached agreement we’re going to need to move on and then you guys will obviously be looking at other projects.
We’ve talked to both Gary (Smith) and Tim (Conner) about this and our interest is in moving as quickly as we can. Once we get to the end of the 60 days we feel we’re going to know exactly what we need in terms of finial financing where the sources are going to be and so on. We do have a number of different financing sources both through the Chester County Economic Development Council as well as various banking relationships…
RDA Solicitor Pat O’Donnell, “This would be a 60 day period during which you would ask the Authority to not entertain other potential proposals. And in return the Redevelopment Authority would receive what?”
David Chauner, “I will commit to procure the land based on terms of what we have discussed here.”
Pat, “You would agree not be researching other sites.”
David, “Yes, absolutely.”
Pat, “Would the Redevelopment Authority receive any remuneration?”
David, “No.”
“By the way, during this period we would be investing as much as $40 or $50 thousand for further site development and cost analysis and so on. We are definitely investing during that period. That’s one of the reasons why we want to make sure that by the end of end of that period we reach agreement on how to acquire the property.”
Pat, “Would we have kind of a memorandum of understanding, if you will. In real estate it’s called a letter of intent that might outline an anticipated purchase price or anticipated schedule? Or would it just be hey, we’re going to hold still for 60 days and you are going to hold still for 60 days?”
David, “I think we would be more than willing to submit a formal request for that 60 day period to indicate what will be accomplished during that period and go back and forth with you until we agree and if you agree move forward and do the studies and surveys that we need to do and as best we can get the right answers by the end of that period. And at the same time discuss with you and come to an agreement as to how the land would be acquired for the long term value to the City of Coatesville…
Pat, “We are probably a little shy of taking any action tonight.” We can only take action at a public meeting and the next one is July.
RDA Treasurer-Jon Kasitz, “Are you proposing to buy outright?”
David, “To be honest with you I can’t answer that right now.”
”We would like to sit down and discuss what’s the best for you and what’s the best for us in both the short term and the long term. The idea here is to create a working partnership that benefits both parties. We all know that there’s challenges, there’s risks, there’s rewards going into a project like this. We are very, very into this project. We want to do it in Chester County. We will do it in Chester County. We’re willing to put all of the other sites on hold for the next 60 days…”
Joe DiSciullo, “Over the next week I think Ted would like to talk to both of these gentlemen.
Ted Reed, “We will do that…”
Joe, “Before we would like to make any type of decision. So, it’s not where the balls going to be dropped. It’s just there are things we can do, that don’t have to be done at a public meeting. So we don’t have to wait for July 15th.” (The next RDA meeting)…
David, “Those of you who know us, know me, know we’ve been at this project for a long time. There are a lot of sites we’ve looked at and a lot of places where we’ve gone. One of the hold ups has been getting our finial financing and one of our hold ups has been getting an initial financial partner, which we now have. And the second hold up has been the site we want to locate this velodrome on and this center. So we’re willing to just negotiate with Coatesville for 60 days, we can concentrate on that.
We’re going to be spending anywhere from 30 to 70 thousand dollars just on the site analysis where ever we go. And we just want to make sure that if we spend that money, go through all of the discussions, that at the end of that period that we don’t have to go somewhere else.”
Ted Reed outlined the relationship between the RDA and the Coatesville City Council regarding the sale of property.
When questioned about the time frame David Chauner said:
“Like I said before, we want to move as fast as we possibly can. We have to explore all of the sources of financing, which include some participants that have been very interested in this project from the beginning. And I think our goal would be to have the facility up and running in time for the 2012 Olympics. A training program that would go along with it we’d like to institute as quickly as we can, that may be unrealistic. But, at first I said the 2008 Games.
Now it’s 2012 and we do have a plan for a program leading up to the 2016 Olympics to develop local talent, cycle talent. When I was directing the track up at Lehigh County Pennsylvania we created a program that produced 16 Olympians including Marty Nothstein an Olympic Champion. What’s really appealing to us to, is the fact that there’s a lot of talent, cycling talent in the United States that’s not been discovered, not been given an opportunity. And one of the big programs that we want to institute here is a youth program to get kids involved in cycling. Teaching them the right way to ride bikes safely as well as compete...cycling programs for kids in Philadelphia and It’s amazing what they are doing with these kids… We’ve got 4 or 5 hundred kids in the program and it’s changing their lives. For them to be able to compete locally…learn how to ride bikes, it’s a great opportunity for the community. And it’s something that’s personally sort of a give back thing for me…the sooner we can get started, the better.
Pat O’Donnell, “Coatesville was approached for a velodrome for the City three or…”
David Chauner, “Five”
Pat, “five years ago. Wasn’t there a study done there?”
David, “There was a study done and actually the City paid us $50,000 to do a feasibility study and we had the results in January of 06. And we were working very closely with Jean Krack and when we presented at his last meeting, actually the meeting before that was his last meeting and we presented to a completely new board of supervisors.” (City Council).
“Obviously we’re going to pull out that material, but it think times have changed… in the interim period we spent a lot of time in Montgomery County and we worked very closely with the Governor’s management team and we actually had a five million dollar pledge from Governor Rendell in writing so if we could secure the site in Montgomery County then we would be covered by the… for five million dollars. Our developers were on a different time frame from our investors so that didn’t work.
But I’m actually meeting with Governor Rendell tomorrow. We run the City bike race in Philadelphia and we need to talk to him about that. I can give him this…tomorrow.”
Pat, “He’s very familiar with and fond of the City of Coatesville; he comes to the parade every year.”
David, “And he’s a big fan of cycling. He’s been mayor of the City of Philadelphia. We run a big race in Philadelphia; we have for 26 years. And the Governor is a huge fan. We’re actually meeting in his office tomorrow the future of the race in Philadelphia; how to expand it, how to alter it for different aspects of cycling…
Pat, I don’t think anybody at this table was involved five years ago… Is there anything out of the City worthwhile sharing?”
David, “At that time we were trying to determine what the best site that was available. There was one site at the intersection at route 30 by pass. We looked at it and determined that was not big enough for what we wanted.
“Jean Krack had called us up… He kept the information and he would be glad to help support a study.”
David Chauner mentioned that former Coatesville Assistant City Manager and later City Manager, Jean Krack originally got them interested in the City of Coatesville.