www.mybaycity.com
August 1, 2004
(Prior Story) Downtown ArTicle 512 (Next Story)
Sponsored by Sunrise Pedal Trolley
This scene from the Liberty Bridge will soon be history with construction of an earthen berm and planting of evergreens. The old Defoe Shipbuilding structure, foreground, is already gone. Downtown View to Vastly Improve With Earth Berm Hiding OmniSource Recyclers
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Future residents of the planned Iron Bridge at Wheeler Landing development, and travelers across Liberty Bridge from the west side of the river will have an improved view.
Instead of piles of recycled materials and old industrial buildings, the view across the river will be clean and green.
That's because OmniSource Corp. plans to erect an earthen berm topped by evergreens to block the view of its busy recycled materials processing yard near downtown Bay City. A fence to be erected along Woodside Avenue also will further improve the view for passersby. The largest of the old Defoe buildings has already been demolished and another building will be renovated for a transportation storage facility.
The Fort Wayne, Indiana, based firm plans about $5 million in improvements and expansion adding a dozen more employees to its present workforce of 45.
The firm's manager, Arnold F. Williams, also stresses that it is not a junkyard, it is a recycler that helps keep the landscape clean. OmniSource also touts its $1.5 million annual payroll and offer to add to the city's tax base through expansion.
Meanwhile, city government grapples with the firm's request for $57,000 in tax breaks overthe next five years. Another abatement request, for $36,000 in tax breaks over five years for cranes worth $864,000, comes up Monday night before the City Commission.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: The City Commission granted two transfers of tax breaks totaling about $35,000 and the company will appeal to the state tax commission the city's rejection of about $42,000 in tax breaks.)
Some city officials apparently consider the request for tax breaks unneeded "corporate welfare" while others think they would be a gesture of good will that should be granted to an outstanding corporate citizen that is making improvements in the local landscape at its own expense as well as providing much-needed tax base and jobs.
Although only three commissioners attended a "goodwill" luncheon July 23 sponsored by the company, Commissioner Kathleen Newsham noted that state law prohibits a majority of the commission from gathering when there is no public notice of the meeting.
The company's announcement of improvements on the old Defoe property adjacent to the former H. Hirschfield Sons scrapyard apparently takes the property out of consideration as the site for a proposed baseball stadium. A former commissioner noted privately that the 30-acre former Defoe property was among the top sites considered for a baseball stadium. A rumor also has surfaced that a former city manager turned down a gift of the site for $1, a report denied by current city officials.
Meanwhile, the city's vision and master plan for a gentrified future is inevitably clashing with the need for more tax base and jobs. The master plan calls for redevelopment of the OmniSource yard and city officials have floated ideasfor alternate sites. The company, to its credit, says it will consider a move to a comparable site convenient to its employees.
The city's dilemma is this: If OmniSource were to move, say, outside the city, that tax base would be lost. If the property were converted even to high end condominiums, the net revenue would be less. Experts in municipal finance note that residences don't produce enough tax base to support local services such as police and fire; higher tax properties and industries like OmniSource are needed to bolster revenues.
In our opinion, the city has a delicate balancing act on its hands and officials must carefully weigh the value of tax base and jobs versus a visionary master plan seeking a different kind of development that may or may not occur. The company's good faith attempt to be a corporate citizen by erecting a berm and improving the site seem to offer a compromise it feels could be workable for the future.###
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