UPDATE: My suspicions were correct. I guess the city has already denied a purchase agreement with this guy, and he was trying another approach by going through the media. The rumor was it was denied because the developer doesn’t roll with the developer welfare queens the city normally gives these projects to. I wondered why this wasn’t in SF Bizzo. This from the city;
Yesterday you received a packet from Thomas Development with their proposal for the railyard sites south of 8th Street (Parcels D & E), which is highly irregular as the process does not ask them to send their proposal to everyone and most developers would not want their plans made public. Unbeknown to us they also sent a press release to the Argus Leader, https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/2021/09/28/sioux-falls-developer-proposes-more-than-200-affordable-apartments-housing-downtown/5906625001/  which is totally outside the normal process we would expect.Â
As I have mentioned in different meetings with each of you, we have two other parties who are planning to make an offer on this site as well. Under our negotiated sale process they have been notified and we expect to see their proposals toward the end of October. Just wanted to let you know that the process undertaken by Thomas Development was a total surprise to everyone and does not indicate that we are doing anything other than receiving their proposal at this time.
Thank you and please let me know if you have any questions.
Jeff Eckhoff Director, Planning and Development Services
While this isn’t ‘affordable housing’ it does fit into the ‘workforce housing’ category;
If approved, the proposal calls for 54 studio apartments, 104 one-bedroom apartments and 58 two-bedroom apartments, with rents ranging from $795 to $1,005.
I couldn’t find out too much background information on the developer, Tom Andrews, but he has done housing developments like this all over the country. We will see what kind of tax incentives he looks for, either in discretionary, TIFs or a discount on the land like the development across the street got. If he asks for none of these things, I will personally thank him to his face for embracing the free market. But I’m not holding my breath.