“Our goal is to blow by the Manchester Velodrome and make this the best indoor velodrome in the world.” Coatesville Velodrome Part B

Dave Chauner, “I appeared before this board about five years ago with the very same project. The players were a little bit different, different financing. I have a lot stronger than we had back then. But I’ve been at this a long time a tremendous opportunity for Coatesville, for cycling and for Chester County.

Before we get into a Power Point slide presentation which will only take about ten minutes or so; we want to run through this video. This was taken at the Manchester Velodrome in England. As Crosby said this has got a very good, one of the best programs in the world or the best program in the world for indoor velodrome racing. You’ll get a sense of what it brings to the community.

And our goal is to blow by the Manchester Velodrome and make this the best indoor velodrome in the world."

 Dave Chauner, “That’s just a brief look at the Manchester Velodrome, which has become the most utilized velodrome in the world. It’s actually put Great Britain on the top of Olympic cycling, since it was built about twenty years ago. Now Great Britain is one of the top cycling nations and won more gold medals in Beijing than any other cycling nations.

What I’d like to do now is go through a quick presentation about the Coatesville Velodrome Event Center. We believe this is a bold and visionary attraction that’s going to provide Coatesville with a world class community asset.

The Velodrome will transform the ‘Flats’. Everybody knows the ‘Flats’ have been looked at for a long time. A lot of projects come and go. We feel that the ‘Flats’ is a great location both from a traffic in and out, the flow but also being in the center of Coatesville, easily accessible, visible to the train tracks. It’s going to be a tremendous transformation of the ‘Flats’ and will fit very, very well with the Riverwalk and some of the other recreation activities that the City is interested in developing.

It’s going to put Coatesville on the map. As I said earlier this is going to be not just…a local center, regional center, national center it will also be an international center. There will be a tremendous amount of recognition throughout the world for this facility.

We are going to engage the local youth. As you saw on the video a lot of the programs that are held on a track are for…kids, to get youth involved in cycling.  The Velodrome will own it own bicycles. We will create a program that will…expose a lot of kids to cycling. Teach safe cycling and in general be a great boon for the local youth.

It’s going to fulfill a need for Chester County. There is no small multi-purpose arena in Chester County. This is a twenty two hundred seat arena that will play a lot of things besides cycling; concerts, basketball. You saw how they used the infield in the video. A lot of different activities can be held here and Chester County needs this.

It will attract new businesses. When the Velodrome is built it will serve as a magnet to bring a lot of other businesses related to cycling, related to health and fitness to the area. I know from the Lehigh County Velodrome that I was a director of years ago; many businesses have come in to be near the track. Bicycle businesses, bike shops, timing companies, physical therapy, and performance center activity. It’s a real magnet for that.

And also important to the citizenry of Coatesville it will sustain itself. This is a public/private partnership but it’s not required be sustained by the City it will cover itself for its own operations.

The key facilities, world class indoor velodrome, this is a two hundred meter Siberian pine two by two board slats that will comprise the surface of the velodrome. It’s a steeply banked facility forty three or forty four degrees in turns. It looks very intimating at first, but it’s actually quite easy to ride once you get used to it and take the classes and so on.

It’s patterned after the World Training Centre in Switzerland which is also a two hundred meter track that’s run by the International Cycling Union. It’s a multipurpose event center as you saw in the video and as we said a lot of different activities can be held in about a twenty five thousand square foot infield. That means you can do everything from badminton tournaments, cheerleading contests, basketball games.

This is the kind of arena that will play for sports and events that are too small to play in a place like the Wachovia Center. But yet attract two to three thousand people for an event. So you get a lot of regional and national championships and non main stream sports and also concerts and also lesser, like we are not going to have Bon Jovi here. We’ll have some other good entertainment that’s part of a concert series.

It’s also centrally located for bike paths and routes. I’m sure all of you know, you are witness to the roads around here and what’s happening with cycling. This sport is growing like crazy. We have a number of bike clubs in the area. The Riverwalk is a great beginning. We think that there is an opportunity to build bike paths further up north along Route 82. There are also some other tracts that the City owns that also then feeds out into Hibernia and all the back roads in Chester County. So it’s a great central location for that.

It’s going to be designated as a national training center. The CEO of USA Cycling is going to be coming here as soon as we have the site locked down. We’ll participate in a press conference where we’ll be named the National Cycling Training and Development Center."

Question from City Council Vice President Karl Marking, “How does world class differ if at all from Olympics?”

Mr. Chauner, “In cycling, world class encompasses a lot of things. It encompasses Olympic style events, Olympic events it encompasses professional races. And world class in this case is not only the facility itself but the program. The program that we intend to have here is definitely going to be world class in that it will go from grass roots development all the way up to top level international competition.

The ongoing cycling programs, they have weekly competitions. We have three levels of competition. We call them A, B and C.  A is novice first time competitors with an opportunity once a week for them to compete. B competition will be more regional and local competition. We are talking about creating some local teams for the different towns around here; Coatesville Cutters will go against the West Chester Rockets and the Phoenixville Flyers and so on and so forth.

And then the major competitions which we’ll hold once every six weeks or so will be major national or international meets that will bring people in from all around the country and around the world.

Year round training facility, this is what the sport really needs in the United States. There is no indoor training facility on the east coast. There is only one other indoor velodrome in the United States right now in Los Angeles. Because of our winters obviously it’s very difficult for cyclists to train year around; which is necessary if you’re going to compete at the highest levels. So this offers a year around training facility and will be actually very active during the winter.

Our youth development programs; I was the first program director at the Lehigh Valley Velodrome. We started the Air Products Developmental Program, sponsored by Air Products a local company. It was to introduce kids to cycling. That was back in 1977. It was the first program we ran and in the thirty years of so that it’s been going we put about fifteen thousand people through that; produced sixteen Olympic cyclists including Marty Nothstein who is world sprint champion in the Sidney Games.

Project 16 is a program we will implement to develop and find talent for the 2016 Olympics.

Velodrome team again will be a local team of riders that we will develop. We’ll initially have some accomplished cyclists already who will represent the Velodrome in competition regionally and nationally so that we’ll get the word out and do a lot of promoting of the National Velodrome here in Coatesville, throughout the country.

We have a foreign exchange program planned. There is a number of indoor Velodromes around the world that are getting together to do exchanges. We’ve talked to groups from Sweden, Holland, Belgium, South America and France. These are all countries that have similar indoor velodromes and we’re looking to create an exchange program. We’ll have racers from the US go to those velodromes and some of those riders come over to our velodrome.

Why cycling is right for Coatesville. The sport is exploding right now. Bicycling Magazine just did a survey of the sport in the last decade, it has quadrupled in size. There are sixty three million Americans that list cycling as their favorite recreational activity. That’s more than golf, tennis and skiing combined. It’s really growing dramatically.

The base is here, so there’s a lot of cycling activity in the Philadelphia area. We started the Philadelphia Championship back in 1985. It’s in its twenty seventh year. There is the Univest Grand Prix that happens in September. It’s one of the biggest international races in the country. And then the Lehigh County Velodrome which is now the Valley Preferred Cycling Center is very active facility in the summertime. Their director Marty Nothstein was the Olympic Gold Medalist and he and I have been talking quite a bit about this. He definitely will be cooperating with them coordinating talent to come back and forth between the two velodromes. And they certainly need a year around program to because they can only operate from May to September.

Coatesville needs it; I think we talked about this it certainly is a great, great magnet. This is going to be something that will shed a new light on Coatesville. It’s going to provide a much needed stimulus to the economy and it’s also something that I think will generate a lot of civic pride and support for a unique facility. You know, West Chester’s talking about getting a minor league baseball stadium and then Chester is the new Soccer Stadium. Those aren’t going to come here to Coatesville but the Velodrome is and this is going to be a world class facility just like those things.

The time is now indoor cycling, indoor cycling and velodrome racing is growing dramatically around the world, partly because the world governing body switched the time of the world championships from September which is typically the end of the summer season, to March which is the end of the winter season or indoor season so many countries are building indoor velodromes now. So this is the perfect time for an indoor velodrome there is a lot of activity around the world and it’s a great time to capture that.

To give you a summary of the key benefits; positive economic impact, were estimating about fifty thousand visitors a year which according to the economic surveys we’ve done would pump somewhere between twenty and thirty million dollars into the local economy. It’s going to really stimulate I think the growth of other businesses as well.

We are looking at fifty to one hundred full and part time jobs that will be directly related to the Velodrome operation of all the different events that will happen there. So it’s going to create a lot of jobs during the construction period. Construction companies so on and so forth. And then also with new businesses that come into the area. There’ll be a lot of new jobs created that way as well.

Mr. Karl Marking, “Are the construction resources such that they specialize in this kind of work?” 

Mr. Chauner, “It’s local IMC Construction, a Malvern based company and they’ll be doing the construction. They’ll be using a lot of local vendors.

Worldwide recognition as I mentioned; we fully intend to make this the most complete and the best Velodrome in the world. I’m not saying that with any humility, I really think we can do it. That’s a lot of things that we can bring to the table from my experience and the experience of others. We’re going to put this definitely on the map.

Enhancement to the community; not only is it going to convert the ‘Flats’ into something that’s pleasing and exciting but also as we mentioned with the developmental programs, the opportunities for other activities and events. It can be a real rallying point for the community and will definitely enhance the image and the reputation of Coatesville.

And a new prestige goes right along with that. I think Coatesville needs a shot in the arm for its prestige and for offering something that is unique and visionary and I really think this is it.

Why the facility will succeed.

Its multi-use, it’s not just cycling even though we’re looking at a full schedule year around and four different seasons. We are looking at about one hundred and five race nights between A, B and C races but that leaves quite a few more evenings and weekends that are available for special events like we went to before. I think that’s key this, is that, it’s not just dependent upon cycling. It’s a multi-purpose facility with cycling as its anchor activity. 

We did a lot of research; marketing research for Chester County we retained a group out of Delaware called Market Edge that did a very comprehensive market research study back in 2008 and determined that our core audience alone, these are people that already know about cycling or are already some way engaged in it. They represent some nine hundred thousand enthusiasts within a fifty mile radius of Coatesville. That’s not even considering new fans and new people that are going to be excited about the Velodrome when it’s here. Clearly we wanted to make sure the numbers that we thought we could attract were valid and I think they’re going to be beyond our expectations.

It’s a solid partnership. We started working with the Chester County Economic Development Council a few years ago and they really steered us and guided us in a lot of positive directions. They are a great crew to work with because they understand the County they understand the politics; they understand where low cost dollars may be obtained, whether they be loans or grants or whatever. We want to work very closely with the City of Coatesville.  It’s not just about our Velodrome it’s about a Coatesville Velodrome and a project that’s good for the community.

I’m sure that we will be working with a task force of Coatesville residents or people that are interested in working with us to give us suggestions and help us really make this a seamless integration with the community. So we’re looking at a really positive public/private partnership.

Our team we believe are experts in every step of the way. Velodrome Management Group is the company that I started about five years ago with the sole purpose of bringing a Velodrome to the area. You’ve heard about my background. One of the things that I am most proud of is the time that I spent at the Lehigh County Velodrome where I was able to get involved with development of the Air Products program. People still come up to me and say, ‘I was in that thirty years ago and it was really great. It really changed my life and gave me an opportunity to learn cycling.’…I think that level of engagement and our ability to market cycling not just put up a facility. But to put up a facility and draw people to it, make it exciting and entertaining. That’s really what we stand for.

Nothing works of course without solid financial partners, Crosby and his investment credit firm Crosby Wood Investments, Coatesville based. Crosby is the one who said we gotta do it in Coatesville. I’ve been here now for several years, this place is going to be turned around it’s going to be great and he’s putting his money where his mouth is and providing us with the basic equity to get the project off the ground. 

Chester County Economic Development Council as I mentioned has been with us from the beginning Gary and Bob who are here with us tonight have been very, very helpful every step of the way. They have stood very well and they realize that this is going to be a great facility for Chester County.

Our team includes R2 Architects out of Vorhees New Jersey. These guys have designed a lot of different facilities, sports facilities, offices and so on and they have a high level of enthusiasm and excitement for the project. We’ve been around and around with them on many different building designs and so on. They are terrific to work with. IMC Construction out of Malvern is our construction management group. They’re the ones that are costing out everything and they as I mentioned earlier will be sourcing local vendors to do the work. We have one of the foremost velodrome designers in the world a guy named Dale Hughes of Detroit who has built a number of world class velodromes around the world including the Olympic Velodrome for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, a great team.

So let’s get rolling."

National Velodrome Center at Coatesville City Council Meeting Part One

The National Velodrome Center LLP gave a presentation to the Coatesville City Council last night:

Mr. Louis J. Colagreco, Jr. Council for the National Velodrome Center, “We’re here tonight with a number of representatives to give a brief presentation to Council to talk about what we think is a very exciting concept for the ‘Flats’ and I’ll introduce some of these gentlemen right now…

Crosby Wood, Crosby is a local resident of Chester County he has done work in the City of Coatesville. He is vested in the City these past few years. He is the principle of Wilson and Wood L.L.C.  Wilson and Wood L.L.C. is a private equity firm and obviously Crosby group would be looked upon to bring private capital to this very exciting project.

Dave Chauner, who’s sitting next to Crosby; Dave is President of Velodrome Management Group and Dave will be working in conjunction with Crosby to bring this to reality. Dave has a long history in bicycling and I would embarrass him if I went through his credentials. But I will tell you that he is a two time member of the U.S. Olympic Team. And perhaps more importantly to this group is, that Dave has actually run a velodrome, the only other one in the State of Pennsylvania up in the Lehigh Valley. A very successful operation, to help your velodrome, the one proposed for the ‘Flats’ as an indoor operation.

Dave is also a Chester County resident operates his business out of West Chester. He’s been involved in cycling for the past thirty years and he brings the day to day management knowhow to the team, to the operation.

At the end of the isle hiding behind this big pillar right here is Bob Grabus and Gary Smith of Chester County Economic Development Council. The Redevelopment Authority, the City Redevelopment Authority has been working through the Economic Development Council to try and help them sort through the many proposals that you folks have seen over the past few years for development on the “Flats”.  And the Economic Development Council is involved in this project and has been working with Crosby and Dave for a couple of months now investigating this property.

Before we start the presentation, which I’m sure members of the audience, If you’re like myself, I confess, I did not know what a velodrome was. But I’ve been educated. It’s an indoor bicycling venue. It can be used for many other things as Dave and Crosby will explain to you when they do their presentation.

The legal reason we’re here, before we get into the presentation, is because we have been before your Redevelopment Authority.  And your Redevelopment Authority just last week has O.Kd  a ‘Purchase Option Agreement’ which we can talk about later if you want to get into legal talk and explain what the purpose of that agreement is. 

Suffice it to say that this project can’t be done with all private equity. There’s no arena like this anywhere that could be built with all private equity. Crosby, Dave, the Redevelopment Authority and Chester County Economic Development Council are all going to be working and have been working to secure public funds. Not obviously from the City but from other sources that make funding for things like this available.  So it’s a combined public/private partnership.

We think it’s tremendously exciting for the future redevelopment of Coatesville. It’s new and a lot of municipalities have expressed interest in having a draw like this brought to the municipality. This situation in Coatesville may have the Sun and the Stars and the Moon all lined up in the right places, we hope, for this to go forward. And actually help further redevelopment in the City.

That’s where I stop. I’m going to turn it over now to Crosby. Crosby you can pick it up and run with this however you’d like. We have a slide show and a little film presentation."

Crosby Wood, “Good evening, my name is Crosby Wood with Wilson, Wood LLC and my partner David Chauner we are excited to be presenting this exciting opportunity to the City of Coatesville. I have another company called New Age Property that has been buying real estate in the City for a few years now. It’s my mission, personal mission, to revitalize the City in conjunction with other efforts going on. And I believe firmly that the property requires a special and unique project that not only will help to stimulate the local economy but will also reach out to the community. I’ve been kind of racking my brain and wondering, well obviously I’m bias to the Velodrome since it’s our own project.  But in trying to think of other projects that could go in there that could really reach out to the community, help to the get young kids off the street, to help give them some hope possibly for a better future in Coatesville. And honestly, I haven’t been able to come up with a whole lot of ideas.

And so, I am emphatically supporting this project, my company has several Million dollars committed to making sure that this project comes to the City and you also have my commitment as a citizen of Chester County to bring this here.

I think it’s no secret that we’ve been looking at Chester County as a whole bring this to Chester County; but there’s really no other city that could benefit, no other town in this County that could benefit from this project more than Coatesville.  At the end of the day whether you agree with me or not, I believe that Coatesville needs this, needs this facility. You’re going to hear Dave in a second talk about a lot of the projects that he’s done in the past, specifically he’s done the ‘Philadelphia Pro Tour” which has been established in 1985. You’re familiar with the infamous ‘Manayunk Wall’ well, he named it, and maybe it was his wife that probably named it. Anyway, Dave’s been carrying some twenty seven years bringing that race to Philadelphia. It’s literally transformed Manayunk. If you can remember Manayunk in the early seventies, it was a distressed area.

I was fortunate enough to be riding around in a mini convertible this past race and I actually never spent time in Manayunk during the race and it was just, it was just unbelievable. I can’t explain the energy, the craziness that was going on in Manayunk. Not that we’re going to bring that kind of craziness to Coatesville but the draw, the energy that Dave has in his vision for cycling is just tremendous.

My investment is definitely real estate based; focusing on the Velodrome but it’s just as much an investment in a visionary. And the Velodrome is a first step in honestly redefining cycling in the United States. We intend to make cycling, this, to be an attraction locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.  Coatesville will be just like, if you are familiar with Manchester, England’s history in the cycling world; a “Mecca” for track racing because it’s got the best run velodrome in the world. We just visited there a few weeks ago and I have a three minute… film and you guys are going to be able to really see what’s happening and capsulate the energy that’s going on.

Dave Chauner is going to say a few words. We’re going to jump into the three minute video and we are going to do a little bit of a slide presentation and then we’re happy to field some questions and kind of run with it from there. “

National Velodrome Center, LP- Presentation to Coatesville City Council Monday

 It’s difficult to build any new commercial development in a country that is just beginning to recover from what was almost a re-run of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Lots of people are out of work or afraid that they soon will be.

It’s not high priced land, or limited investment funds that are keeping new retail stores and office buildings from coming out of the ground; it’s whether there are customers ready to buy the product. And for the most part they are not spending money.

I believe the National Velodrome Center has a customer base, if you will, that is ready and eager to fill a National Velodrome with racers and spectators.  That customer base is national and to a lesser extent worldwide.

And the National Velodrome Center’s primary place of interest at this time is humble, but friendly and photogenic Coatesville, PA.  Wait until the racers see our versions of the Manayunk Wall.  
At the City of Coatesville's City Council Meeting of Monday, October 11, 2010 the Regular Action Item Number One is to; “Receive and Consider confirmation for Redevelopment Authority of a ninety day Purchase Option Agreement with the National Velodrome Center, LP, for construction of Velodrome facility on the Flats.”

From Drop Box

AGENDA CITY COUNCIL MEETING Regular Meeting Monday October 11, 2010 CITY OF COATESVILLE CITY HALL


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National Velodrome Center LP special RDA meeting in Coatesville

National Velodrome Center LP special RDA meeting in Coatesville

The National Velodrome Center is coming along very well. The first discussion concerning the National Velodrome Center on the RDA’s agenda came at the “Citizen’s comments on agenda items”.

Citizen’s Comments

Mr. John Pawlowski, “I for one, as a Coatesville citizen endorse that program wholeheartedly and I say that, urging the RDA not to make some of the mistakes that to me were made in the past. When you have a good person who wants to buy that…don’t pass it up.  I saw a rendering of the outside of the building and I think that would make, that part of Coatesville. It would force that part of Coatesville to improve itself. It would force downtown to become something special."

Mr. Jim Pitcherella, “I used to live in Lehigh County and I know what the Velodrome means there, to the people there. It’s been there about 20 years. The school kids get involved with the bike racing and all kinds of stuff about bicycles. And like I said at the City Council meeting; It might be possible one day that we have an Olympic champion come out of Coatesville High School as a bike racer, it could happen.”

Ms. Marie Hess. “I went to college in Berks County, Kutztown. I saw the positive results of the Velodrome in Lehigh County. I think we need something like this in Coatesville to bring positive change to our system and like Mr. Pitcherella said we have plenty of athletes here in this City that could do something else, that we could have our kids look forward to in Coatesville.”

Ms. Lorrie Root, “I strongly support the Velodrome… My son races professional BMX races as well as Motor Cross. This would open up not only opportunities for the kids to go into something besides basketball in Coatesville. It would open up opportunities for bicycle shops, a whole wealth of other businesses that would follow right along. The visitors we’d have here that would come as a result of this and the races are huge when they happen. It would be a diverse group of people from all over the United States, bringing their money here to spend in our stores, our little restaurants. I think that would be a very, very wonderful thing for us to have."

Kadisia Almein, “I would just like to say that I want the Velodrome as well. They pretty much summed it all up; it would be good for the children, it would be good for the town and it would bring a lot of opportunities..”

Next to speak was the RDA Solicitor, Patrick O’Donnell, “The proposal is for a purchase option agreement….It comes down to just shy of 25 acres. I says ‘within the next 90 days they will have access to the property, access to our records and access to various other things so long as they produce certain insurance documentation to us and agree to hold us harmless from any damages or labiality.

That they will place a $10,000 escrow, if you will, upon signing this agreement. The $10,000 will be refundable in the event that the deal doesn’t go anywhere. In the event that we do reach an agreement of sale and the agreement of sale has to be mutually agreed to, then the $10,000 will become a deposit on the agreement of sale.

In short, you get a 90 day time period for property examination and the development of an agreement of sale. The development of the agreement of sale will address questions like, what conditions or contingencies have to be in the agreement, whether or not, for instance, Act 2 closure is required or various other things…

The major question in this is, what do we do in the 90 days? We had a lot of Council discussions about this…The current version that we’re asking you to consider is that the parties may look at alternatives so that the RDA could for instance look at alternative users of the Flats and the Velodrome organization could look at alternative sites.

But we have a mutual promise in here, first that we’re going to use our best efforts to accomplish the purposes of the agreement. And secondly that if one party or the other decides that it wants to pursue some other option, let’s say that the Velodrome people where offered a deal on a piece of property someplace else or let’s say that the RDA was offered a deal to acquire the flats. Then our agreement is we expose that to the other side. There’s a time period that we and they can continue to look at other prospects.

And those of you that are enthusiastic supporters of the Velodrome should know that the way this is currently written, for technical reasons it was very difficult to reach an agreement with respect to just to stand still and that this seemed to be a better choice.

Because just as we sometimes get unsolicited proposals, they sometimes get unsolicited proposals and we wanted an option that allowed us to look at that, but that if we were going to pursue that, we have to let the Velodrome know; where if the Velodrome gets an offer that they intend to pursue they have to let us know and then we have 14 days within which the parties can attempt to make an equivalent offer…

One of the problems in this is, in this agreement there’s no stated penalty. If somebody cut a deal and didn’t disclose that to the other side until the deal was cut, you’d we left in a legal limbo. But I think our feeling is that the National Velodrome people have indicated their complete intent to proceed with this and we indicated to them our complete intent to try to make the deal happen.”

 Next to speak was the solicitor for the National Velodrome LP, Mr.Jonathan Jordan, “First of all we’d like to thank everybody that came out and expressed support for us. We didn’t orchestrate that and we were pleasantly surprised.  Similarly Mr. O’Donnell did a great job of summarizing this agreement.

We just want to get started towards a real properly advanced agreement with you and this is the best way for us to go about that… In the first sentence of paragraph nine, I think we’re better off saying, ‘we’re working in good faith’ instead of using ‘best efforts’…

Essentially, I think you’re right. Everyone wants to work toward the same goal, that will open up a dialogue so that we can hopefully get to an agreement and that’s what this is all about.”

Real estate developer, Mr. Crosby Wood was asked what the status of the project, “We are working very closely with our architects to determine the exact costs and structure of the building. One of the issues that we are confronting is how much subterranean work that we have to do. How much below ground level. So one of the reasons that we’re really looking at the Flats carefully is to determine just how far we might have to go or be able to go down. We’re also looking now at possibly putting it on a slant so that we wouldn’t have to go down at all.

These are some of the issues that we want to confront. And I think we’ve come a long way since the last time we were here with our architects in terms of design of the building. The first design was more expensive than we thought it needed to be. So we’ve come back to a simpler building but also one that we think will fit very much into the community here. And I think we’ve worked a lot with CCDC in getting their advice on some of the possible funding sources for us and so on.

We’re just moving forward… Our goal is to fast track this and get if moving as quick as we can and hopefully be part of the effort to redevelop the area. And we really appreciate everybody that came. We’re surprised, pleased, that some of the citizens are really aware of this and are interested in it. And all the things that you said are definitely going to be part of the plan. We’re very excited about the possibility to move forward."

Mr. Wood was asked about the large pile of dirt.

Mr. Wood, “It might probably help…The depth to water table is an average, I believe of…about 10 feet down, it’s 7 to 15 feet…On our preliminary plan we had the infield sitting about 22 feet in the ground and that didn’t even take into consideration the tunnel that is under that’s underneath that to get into the infield.

So that is one example of how we’re kind of shifting gears both from a cost perspective as well as from a water table perspective. We are kind of coming to grips with the idea that it’s either we are going to be dealing with water or rock.

So if we can take that dirt and actually use it to build up a base and now all of a sudden instead of like 10 feet of earth we can use, now we got maybe 20 feet of earth that we can work with to raise the building up and also to give us the base that we intend to set the Velodrome into. We’re working on all kinds of different parts as far as how to make this cost effective…

The most recent version..is to make it reminiscent of the steel mill area where you basically have a large building reminiscent of a some of the steel mills…more esthetically pleasing and then basically building the infrastructure within the capsule itself… It’s exciting and I think that option is much more cost effective…It’s kind of a skin or whatever and then we basically build it up inside from there.”

Mr. David Chauner, “One other thing that I would add…is that there has been particularly in the last 2 months a lot of buzz about this indoor velodrome coming to the East Coast and specifically to Pennsylvania amongst the cycling community. I know you people were here, you’ve heard about it.

We’ve been trying to keep it fairly quiet because we don’t want to have any false starts..We’ve had several articles in the paper every time we do.. The velodrome’s going to happen/maybe it’s not going to happen and so it’s important for us to move quickly and then make a decision and be able to then release the information properly to the cycling world in particular..

I have been in contact with Steve Johnson who’s the CEO of “USA Cycling” and they are going to designate the Velodrome as a national training and development center..He’s willing to come here for a press conference when we’re ready to make that announcement. Which I think would be a real shot in the arm for everybody. It would certainly help us in our marketing to get the word out.

But again that’s the kind of thing we have to hold off on until everything is firmed up and solid. We don’t want to do a false start.

We’re quite excited about it. I was actually up at the Trexlertown Lehigh Valley Velodrome on Saturday; at the swap meet up there. I was talking to them and I spoke to Marty Nothstein who is head of the Velodrome up there and a good friend of mine and he’s very enthusiastic about and said, we’re definitely with them when we do our grand opening or press conference we’ll have him down here. An Olympic Gold Mentalist from Sidney…

There’s just a lot of great things that will come to pass when we’re ready to release the information and really get going here…

As Crosby said our goal is to really create a great working relationship with the community and make this a real source of pride for Chester County, for Coatesville in particular and I think you’ll be amazed at how much it will do for the community and for the State in general.

Other people can do the ball parks and soccer stadiums, we’ll have the velodrome here and that will be really neat and great.”

There was a sort of general discussion:

There was a question about a drawing in the RDA packet. In it the Velodrome seemed to have the entire Flats property reserved for the velodrome.

Mr. Wood’s answer, “That was actually an original drawing I think created.. 5 years ago when they originally came here…There should be another one….which does not have any of those sites, it just has a very simple kind of rendition of just where we intend to put the actual velodrome…

The general strategy honestly is that we’d like to…move forward…one section and build the velodrome and create a public-private kind of relationship where we can build out the rest of the Flats. So that it’s marketable, so it’s a win-win. We can help you invision how the whole flats is going to look. We can help to bring those future businesses in and you guys can further benefit from that, rather than the current state that it’s in right now.

We need to find relationships that are kind of inversely related when it comes to parking usage. Because on some nights…we’ll need 700-800 spaces, but most of the time we’re only going to need 100 -150 spaces on a regular basis.

So if we had…another…few business in there, we can talk more about that..they can further stimulate…the economy in this community; it will work for us."

Mr. Ted Reed, “You’ll definitely will need the north side of the bridge for parking." Mr. Wood, “There’s no question…We also have interest in talking to you about the parking lot where you have the busses across the street…We would be interested in that as well.

We are open for parking for office…We would be interested in developing a relationship with that too…I know that we’ll attract the businesses, the office needs to fill that building, revitalize that building and generate again more business in the community. And we’d like to be involved in that."

Mr. Reed asked the about bicycling with ramps. Mr. Chauner, “It’s called BMX racing and it was introduced into the Olympics for the first time, this last time."

Mr. Reed, “Will that be part of your project?” Mr. Chauner, “It definitely can be and we’d like it to be. The question is where? And how we would locate that? Our overall plan or concept is best realized if we can make this a multi-dimensional cycling facility. There are basically several disciplines to cycling, track racing or velodrome racing is one…BMX racing and mountain bike racing. There’s potential to develop all those elements in this area. Maybe not all in the site of the Flats but going up the bicycle path trail that you already have planned. Acreage up there could be developed as a mountain bike park a BMX track. There is just a lot of options that if we come here and obviously we’re here doing it makes a lot of sense for the next phase to try and develop some of those.

We’re definitely interested in that. We’ll try not to bite off more that we can chew…but phase, if you will, phase 2 and phase 3…As long as we develop a great working relationship with you guys right out of the gate and get the velodrome up and running, then we’ll be in constant communication with you guys moving forward…We’ll definitely do some more things and kind of go beyond a track site to develop literally a destination for Olympic training on the East Coast or in the whole Nation possibly."

A question was asked if they had other municipalities interested, Mr. Wood, “We have, we’ve been approached by Caln Township. We’ve had discussions over the last couple of years. I’d say that our focus right now is totally on this location, this site and if we can come to an agreement, this is where we want to be.

Interest is one thing, being able to really make it work for all parties is a whole other thing. We had looked at some very exciting properties in another location but there was just too much, too many hurtles to cross to make those happen economically. I think this is certainly at the top of the list.”

Mr. O’Donnell, “I just want the board to understand. I think this is a wonderful project but we don’t have item 1 for the agreement of sale…There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip as my mom used to say…There’s a lot of work to be done in that 90 days to make this come to fruition…"

Mr. Reed, “One of the things that concern me here, Mr. O’Donnell, is the plan was to have the agreement in place tonight so that we could take it to the City Council on Monday and have the City Council hopefully approve it as the velodrome presents it to the Council for the first time. Although I believe the Council is very much aware of this project. But if you’re saying that this agreement is not in final form.”

Mr. O’Donnell, “In my view, City Council doesn’t have to approve this. City Council would have to approve the agreement; It’s good for the City Council to do that but they will as part of this; the agreement within this is (that) the City Council has to approve the agreement of sale which is the document we have 90 days (to develop). This document could be ready for signatures tomorrow."

Mr. Reed, “Would the Board be amenable to authorize the Solicitor and the Chairman of the Board to finalize the agreement for signature tomorrow to present to City Council… Well I really would like to give this into the City Council with their Friday packages. So they have the weekend. I don’t want to give it to them Monday night because that isn’t enough time.."

Mr. O’Donnell, “I’ll have it out of my office by 8:00 am tomorrow.”

There was a unanimous vote to authorize the signature of the “Purchase Option Agreement”

Why Bart Blatstein, Baker Properties and Don Pulver were interested in Coatesville

What attracted developers here to Coatesville was the possibility of Lukens Steel Company selling Heavy Industrial Zoned land in the center of Coatesville and along 2 major roadways to the RDA to be developed and re-zoned as Business Commercial and Residential 3.

The fact that the City of Coatesville is a transportation, commercial and social nexus in the center of development coming west from Philadelphia and coming east from Lancaster was the kicker.

A Zoning Overlay was developed over the heavy industry zoning to legally allow townhouse, condominium and commercial development such as office buildings, stores and restaurants on the industrial land.

When Lukens was sold we still held onto the possibility that the industrial land south of Rt-30 would be available. Bethlehem Steel allegedly did not even respond to the Cities attempts to communicate. International Steel Group bought the former Lukens Steel Company and they were interested in selling the land south of Rt. 30.

We had a Zoning Ordinances made into law for revitalizing the entire City by Tom Comitta, City of Coatesville Planning Commission, the RDA and others.

The Zoning included:

The Zoning Overlays for I-2 Heavy Industry steel company land in the 1^st Ward; the “FLATS REDEVELOPMENT DISTRICT (FRD) OVERLAY DISTRICT ORDANCE”.

A Zoning Ordinance for the land on the north hill of Coatesville that Baker/Iacobucci was interested in developing was also made into law; the “HILLTOP NEITHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT (HND) OVERLAY DISTRICT ORDINANCE”.

When Mittal steel bought the steel company they decided they wanted to hold onto all of the land. It looked like all hope was lost. But then the owners of G.O. Carlson Steel Company made a very generous offer to the RDA and the City of Coatesville for the industrial land north of Rt. 30 and the redevelopment was still on.

If G.O. Carlson had not decided to make their land available at low cost to the RDA, Don Pulver’s hotel and any other interest in developing or revitalizing Coatesville would have disappeared along with the RDA. And a gas powered electric power generation plant would probably be under construction in the center of Coatesville right now.

Fortunately redevelopment for Coatesville is still in play. But we need to keep in mind that the Flats Redevelopment District Zoning Overlay that makes commercial and residential development legal over the Heavy Industry Zoning is still just that, an overlay. The land is still zoned for heavy industry and people are going to look for ways to bring heavy industry back to the land and I think, some may try to find ways line their pockets with kickbacks.

The possible” kickback” in the power plant could have been the public/private “Coatesville Power Authority” that would have had Billions of dollars in power leases going through it. 

Mr. Morton, “It’s got to go somewhere.”It just happens that they want a fracking chemical plant in a black neighborhood.

Arthur Morton an associate broker with Ambassador Realty of Coatesville gave a brief presentation about a business venture called Blue Sky International or BlueSky International (I haven’t found it on the web yet) seeking the need for about 8 to 10 acres to develop what’s called a proppant plant.
The proppants are created from slag that would come from the steel mill.
Mr. Morton,
"I brought to the city several weeks ago, perhaps three or four weeks, a business venture by a company called Blue Sky International seeking the need for about ten acres to develop what’s called proppant plant. Proppants are metallic balls that are created from slag material. And all this obviously comes together because of the steel mill and the slag that is ultimately produced from making steel. It’s then reprocessed by Stine, which is, I guess the old Brown Company…
Essentially, the company that the office represents is a company called Blue Sky International. Material has been given to Rob Barry and Ted Reed. A business plan and executive summary also the request for information has been received by your office."
Mr. Barry, “Right, and all those documents, reports have been recorded accepted and we have received."
Mr. Morton, “Additional reports by the company, labiality.”
Mr. Morton, “The initial meeting that I had was with Mr. Gary Smith from the Chester County Economic Development Council bringing the project to his attention for its violability for financing. I think we see a vital positive response. Our investors in this project are financially very capable….
But what we have is a thirty million dollar plant to be erected that will produce about a thousand tons of proppants a year. Which is essentially the amount of slag produced from the mill; or a thousand tons a day, I should say…
The concept is; ArcelorMittal makes the steel, there is slag produced, Stine… takes that slag reprocesses it. They take out all the remaining metals and what have you and then sell it back to the steel mill. The remaining is to a large degree used…for roads et cetera. That material…we would make the units called proppants which are used in the oil and gas industries to force down into the well to open up the fissures that allow low producing wells release their gas and oil actually making Marcellus Shale a lot --- We have a relationship with Halliburton…
We use 100 percent of the slag material that comes into the facility; it’s not a noisy facility. It’s clean; we have scrubber and everything, its waste water going in and scrubbers, recycling systems all in play. The company in the long run will probably be a one hundred million dollar producer plus. It will employ directly somewhere around eighty people, twenty four-seven….
As a result of coming to the City and speaking with Rob and Ted we identified the flats the north side of the flats, although it did stress the velodrome’s position et cetera… That’s where we are today… So we’ve got one hundred thousand dollars for the corner of Lincoln and Church and a million dollars for the eight acres or less on the north side of the flats. We think we have the financial wherewithal to meet the requirements for the Economic Development Council….
The principals are meeting with Stine on Monday…. A letter of interest has already been submitted to negotiate a contract to sell to Blue Sky all the slag they need to do this project."

Mr. Pat O’Donnell, “Have you had any discussions with the velodrome people about a shared space?”

Mr. Morton, “No I haven’t.  Again we just started three or four weeks ago with talking with Barry and Ted. We’re open, you know, being a real estate broker and looking at high investments for real estate, It seems to me that we can co-exist on the site…"

Mr. Reed has talked to a local industry about the possibility of some land, seventy nine acres outside of the City limits of Coatesville. The Blue Sky Company was not interested in that. Mr. Reed wants the staff to work on the possibility of finding another site near the steel company.

Mr. Reed said, “Certainly we would like to have it in Coatesville, but if there is some other area outside of the area at least that could be jobs for Coatesville residents. But we would like to work everything we can to see if you could do it inside the City limits.”

Mr. Morton, "It’s got to go somewhere.”



 “It’s got to go somewhere.” Sure, companies look for low income black or minority cities to put their polluting dangerous plants into. Places where people have less political clout and where public officials can be paid to play. Actually I don’t think it needs to go anywhere at all. The gas companies don’t need to mine for gas and Halliburton doesn’t need fracking chemicals from Coatesville or anywhere in Chester County.
We don’t have to run the risk of spilling fracking chemicals into the Brandywine Creek, destroying our ground and surface water. We don't need tap water that you can light with a match like in the video below. Right now, I think because of Dick Cheney, there are no United States EPA regulations regarding fracking chemicals. That is likely to change. 
I don’t think a company that manufactures fracking chemicals should go in downtown Coatesville or anywhere on the Brandywine Creek.

This is what proppants for fracking do:

Citizen’s Comments:
John Pawlowski, “I’m trying to piece together what I heard here... I think the area this gentleman is talking about is north of the viaduct and one time 84 Lumber wanted to buy some of that and put in one of their establishments and the entire RDA turned it down. I don’t know much about everything, the details, I can only comment on what I think I heard. And what I think I heard is that something like that does not belong in Coatesville. I don’t care where in Coatesville you look, it does not belong in Coatesville. Perhaps there’s space right in the middle of the Mittal property down it South Coatesville somewhere where this will fit very nicely and still maybe contribute to employment of one or two Coatesville people.
But I think Coatesville deserves something better on the flats than an environment that I just heard described there. I can’t believe, I think even the fact it’s called ‘Blue Skies’ makes me suspicious of what it might be or end up being.
I led the march against the crazy idea of putting in a gas fired electrical plant down there. I cannot believe anybody would seriously consider putting anything down there (like that). Coatesville is not that hard up for a couple of jobs. I don’t think so. And I can’t speak totally against it because I don’t know that much about it. I don’t what to be presumptuous; I’m only commenting on what I think I heard. That area down there has become prime area now that always wasn’t.
But now people want to come in and kind of kill a dream. That’s what it is. When the RDA bought that property it was with the idea of putting in something good down there, something nice.
G.O. Carlson could have stayed there and had this stuff right in their building they wouldn’t have to tear them down. What’s the point?”



Maria Hess, “With all due respect to this company that came in, we do not need another company like this in the City of Coatesville. We’ve had enough poor air quality with Lukens, ArcelorMittal … We need something like the Velodrome we’ve all come in here tonight and seen how much we need the velodrome. We do not need another chemical in our air. We don’t need anybody that is supplying to ArcelorMittal; they’re tearing buildings down they’re not raising buildings... We don’t need somebody who is supplying them with any more material. In Coatesville, we’re not looking for dollars. We are looking for something that will bring quality of life here in Coatesville. We are looking for a price tag anymore. We’re not selling Coatesville. We’re selling a quality of life here. If you can’t bring quality of life here in Coatesville, we don’t need your money. We need a better life for our citizens. Our City is not for sale. We are not going to pick any old company that’s made a dollar anymore. It’s a new administration. It’s a new life in Coatesville. Thank you.”

Kadisia Almein, “I agree with Maria and the rest of the folks. Folks in Coatesville are not for sale. The City’s not for sale for junk. What he’s presenting will not go hand in hand with the velodrome. I don’t even know how he could picture that going hand in hand with the velodrome. The velodrome is a good idea and over all long term, it’s going to make the quality of life better. It’s going to bring money here a lot of money. We don’t need any more chemicals. And I would say no. It’s a foolish idea. We didn’t want the power plant and we don’t want Blue Skies either here.”



Laurie Root, "I’m with Coatesville Guardian Angeles who along with several other members here have gone out through this community two to three days a week to clean up the graffiti, pick up the trash with no assistance from anybody, just our own wills for a better life. Why are we doing this, that there is even any consideration to have a company come in that’s going to pollute the air, going to throw water waste products into our system. One thing that I hope has been considered Is the water table. We have a creek where my grandchildren can catch little fish. You can’t eat them, they’re toxic from the sewage overspill. I think this would probably ruin the ecosystem that we currently do have.
The velodrome that encourages health, physical health for the community, get out an exercise, work your heart, do something, and be something in life.
The Blue Skies seems to be the exact opposite. We need to consider, we’re in a valley here. We live in a valley. There have been other circumstances where there’s been large industrial plants, as well as steel plants and on foggy days has created a death cloud where people have died, had severe allergy problems, asthma problems. I just studied that in my class in school. It’s not healthy. How can you put something not healthy next to something that’s promoting physical health and well being? I just hope you really consider everything as well as the wildlife in the area, what the Riverwalk is supposed to mean. No one is going to go out and walk on that Riverwalk, if there’s soot on it, if there’s pollution of water, If there’s no aquatic life in there. I think it’s absurd and we deserve better."



“Gasland” Now PBS

It didn’t take very long for Barry Cassidy to clean the drug dealers from the streets of Phoenixville

He did it one corner at a time. 

I think Coatesville is harder.

 From what I can tell Phoenixville didn’t have a deeply embedded long time drug dealer culture. I believe that Phoenixville also doesn’t have a significant amount of its population, clergy and government officials that are all right with the drug business. That is they think it’s a reasonable way to make a living and like the benefits bestowed on them.

I also believe that Phoenixville does not have a large number of residents whose families go back 100 years or more and families that are fairly easy to threaten.  I don’t think that people back in Phoenixville are notified minutes after a Phoenixville resident talks to someone at the County Courthouse.  

I don’t believe that industries that by their nature are dangerous pollute water or air or are generally unsightly target Phoenixville as a spot where they can get away with constructing a business.  Or that have an old boy Republican network to help them place their polluting, dangerous businesses in Phoenixville.