The City of Joplin has retained the services of CarrBaierCrandall (CBC) Real Estate Group of Kansas City, Missouri, as the project manager for the library project on 20th and Connecticut Streets. This was approved by the Joplin City Council at their meeting August 18, 2014 meeting. The project is a partnership with the Economic Development Administration, which awarded a $20 million grant to assist the commercial redevelopment of this area following the 2011 disaster. .
The project manager will help city and library leaders manage the design and construction phases of the library development and will help synchronize efforts with the adjacent commercial development underway with the city’s master developer, Wallace Bajjali.
“We are excited to be at this stage of the program and look forward to working closely with CBC as we move into the next phase of retaining design and engineering services”, said Tony Robyn, Joplin’s Disaster Recovery Coordinator.
Robyn indicates the project is expected to take 18-24 months to complete and multiple community input meetings will be scheduled as the program moves forward.
“CBC is pleased to be considered for this very important project,” said Bill Crandall, Managing Principal with CBC Real Estate Group, LLC. “We too look forward to working with the City on this project and to play a part in continuing to help rebuild the City of Joplin.”
City staff and CBC will meet next week to prepare for the next steps of securing an architect to initiate conceptual designs and cost estimates in order to proceed.
6 comments:
cool
I can only hope and pray that they do not hire the clowns who designed the ugly-ass school buildings for the library design. Those buildings are horrible.
They applied and did not get hired I saw, takes about two minutes to do your homework and save us all your thoughtful remarks
I hope this will be a second branch and not a replacement.
Replacing the smelly one
It sounds like councilman Woolston is a bit upset that the library is being taken away from his beloved Master Developer and whatever skim of the bottom he would get from it. At the last Master Developer update, the new local operating officer, Mr. Braswell, supposedly submitted some examples of his vision of the library. It sounded like he may have thrown out a picture or two of his shopping center projects in Kansas City as samples. I would guess at that point the city finally figured out they are dealing with a scam artist, and would prefer the library not look like a canned strip shopping center. It may also be another step to begin severing the Master Developer's say in these projects and ease him out, since he is still under contract. Also, I am pretty sure I read that the city is going to use TIF funds towards work on Joe Becker Stadium. I believe this would be in violation of the TIF as that money was supposed be for only projects in the tornado zone.
Post a Comment