An Endangered Treasure
From 2000 to 2002, at the City's request, the local community, led by a team of noted architects and planners, engaged in an extensive charrette process, resulting in a comprehensive study of area needs and prospective design solutions.
The McMillan complex is a wonderful example of sustainable civic infrastructure built in the past. How can it become part of our shared sustainable future? The site has been dormant and inaccessible since 1985. It offers a challenge: how to recover it as a community asset and to re-inhabit it by creatively transforming its unique features.
In the 2002 study, the community and city agreed that the following goals would inform any future development plans for McMillan --
♣ Provide Open Space
♣ Preserve and Adaptively Reuse the Site Features
♣ Be Creative
♣ Mitigate Neighborhood Impacts
♣ Make It Feasible
♣ Be Responsive to Community Needs & Concerns
In 2007, a new "community process" was instituted: the McMillan Advisory Group (MAG) – a committee comprised of (1) neighborhood and civic representatives, (2) Clint Jackson of the Executive Office of the Mayor, (3) various local elected officials and (4) Aakash Thakkar of EYA Development and EYA’s prospective development partners.
The selection of a Master Developer for the McMillan site was never open to a competitive bidding process. A competitive process of selecting a Master Developer and vision for the site would present creative alternatives for the site and creative financing alternatives for the City that may not require public money.
Currently, EYA and its partners are lobbying hard to obtain a Land Use Agreement in order to build over this 25-acre parcel. Their private development plans include massive construction covering over about 90% of this PUBLIC land. Their building bonanza proposes a shopping strip, supermarket, hotel, nursing home, numerous medical office buildings of the scale of Children’s’ Hospital, and over 1200 housing units....
This area of the city has no public parkland, recreation facilities, senior services, or library. Neighbors are asking for community-enhancing public facilities to be included in proposed development plans. EYA’s proposals offer NONE of these quality-of-life community features.
Nonetheless, EYA and partners are currently seeking taxpayer funding, estimated at $60 million or more, to cover their initial “site preparation” costs – which will destroy most of the historic structures on the site.
