Council divided on new grant match
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on April 26, 2015 1:50 AM
The Goldsboro City Council gave the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. permission to apply for a TIGER VII grant at its most recent meeting.
But the authorization came on a 4-3 vote, with council members Gene Aycock, William Goodman and Bill Broadaway voting against the measure.
DGDC must apply for a minimum grant amount of $10 million, and create a 20 percent match if the funding is received.
DGDC director Julie Metz said the money would be used to renovate the historic Union Station, Cornerstone Commons, the installation of wayfinding signs throughout the city and the rest of Streetscape along the 300 and 400 blocks of South Center Street.
The council members who voted against applying for the grant said the millions that would be needed to match the grant funding for downtown could be used for other projects throughout the city.
"You know if we get the $10 million that means we have to come up with $2.5 million," Aycock said. "This means it's still money going to one specific area of Goldsboro. Now we've spent a lot of money in that one area, and we have not taken the time to see what kind of return we are going to get out of it. If we were to take that $2 million that we would have to match, we could do a lot of street pavings, we could do a lot of infrastructure things -- we could make improvements to the other areas of Goldsboro. I'm not opposed to downtown. It's not a matter of being opposed to it. It's just that we have so many needs in other places that we have to address or they're going to be as bad as downtown Goldsboro was."
According to a presentation by director of engineering Marty Anderson at the council's retreat in March, repaving every street in the city that needs resurfacing would cost $1.7 million -- an amount that would be covered by the money needed for the TIGER VII grant match.
Under the project proposal, Union Station rehabilitation would cost $8.7 million, the completion of Center Street revitalization would cost $2.8 million, wayfinding signs implementation would cost $330,000 and improvements to Cornerstone Commons would cost $1 million.
The total cost of the projects would be $12.9 million.
Ms. Metz said Union Station would be 80 percent funded by the U.S. Department of Transportation, with the city paying 20 percent of the cost. Wayfinding signs would be 80 percent funded by TIGER funds, and 20 percent would come from the city. Cornerstone Commons would be 50 percent funded by TIGER funds, 10 percent would be funded by the city and the other 40 percent would come from the private sector. The Center Street completion would be 80 percent funded by TIGER funds and 20 percent funded by city money.
"We do have construction plans fully ready, except they're several years old and they need to be revised," Ms. Metz said. "It would be a minor cost to re-examine them and make sure they're meeting current building codes. Staff has talked about this and while we feel like the momentum is great for downtown and we don't know how long these TIGER funds will be available and there aren't any other grant sources of this magnitude around to fund these types of needs in the community, we feel comfortable between all of that, as well as the flexibility and the schedule (of the grant), as well as our current debt service load, to recommend these projects to you."
Goodman said for the millions that have been flowing into the city in recent years, he hasn't seen any of those funds benefit his district outside of what is being done on Center Street, which is in his district.
"It's bypassed District Three," Goodman said. "Yeah, (money has gone to) downtown. I'm talking about the other areas of District Three."
Aycock said he understands wanting to seize the opportunity while funds are available, but the match required by the grant means the city has to come up with millions of dollars. He said he wasn't sure "now was the time" to continue applying for funds to be used downtown.
"I've got a big concern about it, I really do," Aycock said. "I think it's something that we as a council are going to have to address at some point is how much is enough? I don't know."
Council members Michael Headen and Charles Williams echoed Aycock's concerns over streets throughout the city needing repaving, saying there are areas in both of their districts in dire need of resurfacing.
"I like the idea of citywide (improvements), not just in certain areas," Williams said. "As some of my colleagues have been mentioning, we need to pay attention to the needs all across the city in all the districts."
Adding the grant would create additional debt for the city, and the city's debt service schedule would peak in fiscal year 2018-19 before falling back to its approximate current level in fiscal year 2022-23.
Funds from the TIGER grant would not need to be obligated by the city until Sept. 30, 2017, and the money would not need to be spent until Sept. 30, 2022.
DGDC must complete a pre-application for the funds by May 4 and submit a final application by June 5.