Financial- COPS (Official Statement/Drafts)

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~~ ~ ~ for use of the funds. The same cannot be said for any alternatives to the Courthouse Square project. • There is an outstanding investment to date in the Courthouse Square project of approximately $6 million. Land costs, demolitioq environmental mitigatioq and architectureJengineering expenses could not be fully recovered through sale of the property on the open market. It is conservatively estimated that the governing bodies would lose $3 million in value.should the project be discontinue3. • The land for the county and transit facilities is already under public ownership. While selling the land recoups a portion of the investment, it does nothing to meet the needs for a downtown transit facility and consolidated county office spaces. Those needs remain unmet, and will require expenditures once again for land and site preparation. • The Courthouse Square project as desigued meets virtually all of the criteria mentioned ss comprising an efficiently designed transit center (on pages 3 and 4). The design is compact and off-street...weather protection covers the entire waiting and pedestrian areas...the design fully me~ts ADA standards... the facility is well lit, separated from trafiic, and has safe and convenient pedestrian access to the surrounding block. .. customer services are an integral part of the facility. .. the "sawtooth" bus bay design provides for independent bus access and egress... access to the downtown and State mall is optimized at the Senator block location... and, the streets which access the facility have lower traffic volumes than most other downtown arterials. Beyond these points, there are other reasons why the Courthouse Square project has received the formal support of a variety of downtown concerns. It seems to make good sense to those who have led this project to combine a major employment center of several hundred employees with a public, transit facility. Some of those employees are currently involved in transit - incentive programs, aad it would seem that many more could be attracted just on the strengt~ of the proximal relationslup between transit services and their workplace. Additionally, the close physical proximity of an employee ~base provides an extra measure of security for the transit mall itself. The presence of three hundred employees in an adjoining building creates an environment of "eyes on the street," and stands to greatly benefit mall security. Finally, the Courthouse Square project still retains a private component. A 17,000 sq. foot pad is available on the Chemeketa Street frontage of the block, a footprint which could result in several floors of retail and/or commercial development. The proceeds of a land lease or sale of the property accrue to the District and County as owners, and help reduce the public cost of operating the Courthouse Square facility. While the public perception may be that this project has lost its private partnership, the reality is much different. IN CONCLUSION... ~ Certainly not all of the answers to all of the questions are clear-cut and easily confirmed. Courthouse Square is a complex undertaking. Like the project itself, some questions require a g