NEW ALBANY — A maximum of $4.9 million in bonds for a high-end apartment complex at the former Coyle car dealership property along Spring Street was approved by the New Albany City Council Thursday night, but it didn’t impress all the members.
Though the $16 million project was boasted by developer Flaherty & Collins Properties as an attractant for businesses, two council members and four members of the public decried the idea of waiving sewer tap-in fees for the development, along with other incentives offered to bring them to New Albany.
Kevin Zurschmiede, council member and Republican candidate for mayor, said he wouldn’t approve of the measure because of other properties that didn’t get a waiver on the sewer tap-in fees.
“I think the site is a great site for apartments, but I said it from day one, I cannot vote for it,” Zurschmiede said. “There are no citizens that I’ve talked to that support this. Maybe they didn’t completely understand it, I’m not sure I completely understand it. The folks that came here tonight to speak against it, the main reason is there’s no way we can set a precedent of waiving sewer tap fees, there’s no way.”
He said with two other large apartment developments in the city, as well as Indiana University Southeast’s dormitories, the city refused to waive their fees.
But the apartments are geared toward higher income residents, ideally, people with incomes higher than $50,000 a year. Austin Carmony, a developer with the company, said the average monthly rent would come in at about $1,100.
Councilman John Gonder said he also had concerns about some of the company’s other properties — specifically two in North Carolina — that went through bankruptcy.
David Flaherty, CEO of the company, said those developments weren’t rental properties like these and said they had some bad luck in the condominium market. Part of that he said, had to do with false demand and condo owners subleasing their properties to make more money, but those arrangements don’t always work.
Greg Phipps, councilman, said he knows some of the people who oppose the plan see it as passing the buck off on taxpayers to help fund the project and giving subsidies to big companies, but he had a different view on it.
“When I came on the council, philosophically, I was opposed to ideas like this,” Phipps said. “I called it corporate welfare as well. For some of the naysayers out there that say this isn’t a thing for Democrats to do, I thought renewing urban environments, cleaning up blighted areas and bringing residents to the community so they can support locally owned business, is very much a Democrat thing to do.”
Dan Coffey, councilman, said the council has tried to deal with this property since the administration of former mayor Doug England. Now that an offer’s on the table, he said it made sense to go for it.
“This is an investment for downtown and I’ve heard the same people complaining are the ones saying you need to do something with the Coyle property,” Coffey said. “We’ve got the opportunity to do it now and we need to move forward. There comes a point in time where New Albany has to invest and this is one of those projects.”
The bonds passed 7-2, with Gonder and Zurschmiede opposing.