I asked the city administration multiple times over the last 2 years to help fix this, as they have done over a dozen times by drafting the paperwork and submitting it to the City Council. They declined. We completed the East Race Market grocery store (open 7 days a week since January, please visit), and asked again. Still the city declined to help fix this problem. I called down state, to the Department of Local Government Fiance (DLGF), and chatted with Steve McKinney. He was very helpful. He said the mayor’s office doesn’t get to decide. The decision is up to the City Council, and that it’s very common to extend the designation (construction) period. Construction delays happen, especially during the pandemic. He said several communities don’t place end dates on the designation periods, so they don’t need to extend them when construction projects take longer. He advised reaching out to a city council member to assist with the necessary resolution. I did.

City Council Vs. City Staff Drama
Council members Dr. Oliver Davis and Sherry Bolden-Simpson are sponsoring a resolution. The City Council’s attorney helped draft the resolution. It’s on the schedule for Monday, June 24th at 7pm.

On Thursday, June 6, 2024, In an unprecedented move, Allie Dolz-Lane, Deputy Chief of Staff for City of South Bend, issued a statement to try and stop the City Council from even talking about the resolution. She recommended the council withdraw the resolution. This would make the whole project financially infeasible, and also cause the closure of the grocery store. It’s unprecedented that the city staff is trying to stop the city council from considering a resolution. Their main arguments are that there are unpaid property taxes and the litigation from the Redevelopment Commision for not building a grocery store. The grocery store is open, and the back real estate taxes should cancel out once the construction period of the tax phase-in is fixed.

 On Monday, June 10th at the 4pm committee meeting. Corporate Counsel Sandra Kennedy, the highest ranking legal official for the mayor’s office, tried to stop the committee from hearing the case. The City Council attorney and city council members corrected and dismissed her. They heard Bill 24-20.

Call To Action
The fix is for the City Council to pass a resolution, just like they’ve done a dozen times in recent years for similar construction projects in our community. These projects were delayed, some by the global pandemic, and many developments received multiple years of extensions. The 300 East LaSalle apartment building was completed 11 months after the deadline. Yes, it did take longer than we planned. The original plan called for $27 million dollars of private investment. We brought $41 million dollars of private investment. The plans were pre approved by the city before we built. There were many construction delays. The granite countertops arrived 9 months late. Three containers of cabinets were stuck in Chicago. They arrived through Canada, and when they got to Chicago, they were unloaded, and more containers were unloaded over and around them. We waited 3 months before our trucks could pick the containers up and transport them to South Bend. There were labor & material shortages. It was a very difficult time. In addition, Martin’s Supermarket sold to Spartan-Nash, the city closed LaSalle Avenue for 6 months. We kept working, and completed a wonderful building. We opened the grocery store about 3 weeks after LaSalle Avenue opened up. Some of the businesses on LaSalle closed and couldn’t survive the street construction. It was a difficult time.