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TO: Mayor Thomas J. Weisner
FROM: Rick Guzman, Assistant Chief of Staff
DATE: November 25, 2014
SUBJECT:
A Resolution Authorizing the Execution of a Development Agreement with the Boy Scouts of America Three Fires Council
PURPOSE:
The Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity recently approved a grant application that would provide the necessary funding to cover the costs of an elevator and other egress and life safety code issues in the building that is already owned by the Boy Scouts. In order to process a grant agreement with the State, however, DCEO is requiring an executed development agreement between the Boy Scouts and the City that just covers the portion of the project that can be opened using the grant funding and where the work will be completed. Therefore, attached is a modified and shortened grant agreement that effectively covers this first phase that would allow the Boy Scouts' current building to be opened next year and serve Aurora your for at least 10 years. Most of the provisions in this agreement are identical to the agreement that you have already seen and approved, however no City dollars are included or contemplated under this agreement. The following is a list of changes:
PARTIES: The parties are the City and the Boy Scouts as owners of the subject property;
CONTINGENCY: The agreement is contingent on the State funding coming through (Sec. 4.1);
COMPLIANCE PERIOD: Sec. 6.1 contains an opening date within 12 months and Sec. 6.2 requires continuous operations for a 10-year period (10 years is at the request of the State);
RECAPTURE PROVISION: Sec. 10.4 creates a Mortgage/Lien on the Property that would be forgiven after the 10-year compliance period; Section 10.1(o) and (p) require that the City's lien be kept in senior position;
REQUIREMENT TO SERVE AURORA YOUTH: is contained in Sec. 10.1(n) and Exhibit B;
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: contains the same spirit and concept as the previous agreement, but relates to only the first building (see Exhibit B);
PROJECT COSTS: Exhibit C outlines the project costs in the same amount as the State Grant ($341,000) - Again, no City dollars are being committed under this Agreement.
BACKGROUND:
Last week the Boy Scouts submitted a response to the City-issued RFP for a Third-Party Operator of the proposed LaSalle Street Community Center. The RFP response requested additional time (to the end of the year) to submit a modified proposal that would require changes to the originally drafted Development Agreement that additionally included Triple Threat Mentoring, Community 4:12 and Communities In Schools largely due to "the engagement of additional program partners, who have expressed interest during the RFP response period."
DISCUSSION:
Per the provisions of the RFP, the Boy Scouts and their program partners have requested that the City exercise the option provided for under Section 6.2 allowing the City to "enter into discussions with proposing organizations whose proposals are found to be of high quality," and the City has agreed to enter into such discussions. In the meantime, immediate action on this Development Agreement for Phase I is necessary in order to benefit from this grant opportunity.
IMPACT STATEMENT:
There are no City dollars being contemplated in this Development Agreement. However, the signing of this agreement will make the project eligible for a $341,000 state grant.
RECOMMENDATIONS:
A vote to approve the enclosed Development Agreement is being recommended in order to facilitate the State funding into this project as soon as possible.
_________________________________________________________________________
PREVIOUS MEMO:
PURPOSE FROM PREVIOUS MEMO: The establishment of a co-located Non-Profit Collaboration Center and Community Center on the Near East Side of Aurora where no community center currently exists. The proposed partnership approach will take collaboration to the next level through office and staff sharing and by focusing on common goals such as:
- After school youth mentoring and tutoring
- Parent mentoring
- Early Childhood Education (Hub for activities related to Aurora's SPARK initiative)
- After school and weekend sports, arts, and academic classes
- Art Center, STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Computer and Robotics Lab
- Adult and youth personal responsibility and leadership development training
- Career awareness and mentoring from engaged business partners
- Positive values development and growth utilizing small groups
- Opportunities for shared resources for support of under-resourced families.
BACKGROUND FROM PREVIOUS MEMO: The proposed Development Agreement contemplates a complete re-thinking of how community center access and associated youth development services can be delivered to the community. The Fred Rogers Center was an example of the older, less sustainable model of community center development and service delivery. In that model, the city used taxpayer dollars to purchase the building; taxpayer dollars to renovate the building into a community center and then taxpayer dollars annually to operate the center (approx. $250,000/year). In stark contrast, this development agreement proposes shared acquisition cost between the public and private partners; shared renovation costs; and then absolutely no ongoing cost to tax-payers to operate the facility, which includes both the delivery of youth development programs by the partner agencies and the staffing of the facility by private partners so that it can be made available to other organizations and members of the general public in a manner consistent with other publicly run community center buildings. In other words, in return for the City's one-time share in the infrastructure costs, the Near East-Side of Aurora will get a sustainable community center that is operated at no-cost to taxpayers.
In 2012, the City sold its Community Center on the Near-East Side Aurora to the East Aurora School District to be re-converted to a (STEM Magnet) school. While this certainly met the needs of this 92% low-income and 94% minority school district, it left this area as the only School District in Aurora without a stand-alone community center. For the past two years, the City has been working closely with a consortium of non-profits including C.I.S., Triple Threat, the Boy Scouts and Community 4:12 that have proposed to co-locate and co-operate two adjoined buildings in this same high-need neighborhood with one building serving as a "non-profit collaboration" office hub and the other building being retro-fitted to provide gymnasium-like multi-purpose community center space with adjoining meeting rooms. Together the buildings comprise 30,000 square feet that will be approximately half office/meeting room and half multi-purpose gathering spaces.
Both buildings have been largely vacant for the past decade and the proposed project would additionally benefit the area by increasing foot-traffic and activity to this block that lies between Aurora's downtown and city's most densely populated neighborhood on the Near-East Side. The City has negotiated a purchase contract to buy the building that would be converted into the multi-purpose community center space. The adjacent three-story building was donated outright to the non-profit consortium, which has raised approximately $700,000 toward the needed renovation
In the wake of the City of Aurora's historic murder-free year in 2012, Aurora Police Chief Greg Thomas was quoted as saying: "It would have done us [the police and community] no good if we continually arrested the top leadership of the gangs and key drug dealers if we didn't have groups such as Boys II Men, NJROTC, My Time (CIS), Triple Threat, etc. keeping recruitment down, helping the community parent, and letting the police do our work." But the work is not completed. These centers will be located in the heart of the City's designated Neighborhood Revitalization Strategy Area (NRSA), which needs the mentoring and intervening of these groups to continue the positive crime trends and reverse statistics such as a having only a 62% high-school graduation rate; 19% college-readiness; and barely 5% of the adult population having obtained a bachelor's degree or above.
But the true innovation of the adjoined and cooperative centers is reflected in the deep commitment to collaboration, which turns the highly subsidized, tax-payer funded model for a community center on its head so that--quite literally--more can be provided for less.
For the City of Aurora, the collaboration is ideal since it can fill an ongoing, documented need in the Near-East Side community through a one-time investment in building infrastructure and then rely on the collaboration to sustain and operate the facility. For the non-profit partners, prioritized access for their own programming in an ideally located facility is gained in exchange for maintaining and making the center regularly available to the general public and other community groups.
Funds for the acquisition of the building that would be converted to the large, multi-purpose, community center space will come from proceeds from the sale of the Fred Rogers Community Center and the funds to renovate the space will come from a combination of CDBG capital dollars as well as a Section 108 loan that will be paid back by a combination of positive cash flow from the Community Center operations and future years' allocations of CDBG capital dollars.
Two of the groups involved in the non-profit consortium, the Boy Scouts and Community 4:12, have religious affiliations. Even though both organizations primarily deliver mentoring, tutoring and youth/character development programming that fits the purpose of this community center and does not include proselytization--and even though this programming is already most commonly delivered in public school buildings--due to potential Establishment Clause issues (church and state), the City received advice from outside council indicating that before entering into a Development Agreement with this Consortium of non-profits that the City create an RFP for the operations of the Community Center to ensure that the benefit to the City that will be derived from this Development Agreement cannot be matched or perhaps even exceeded by a different set of non-profit partners. This RFP was published on Oct. 27, 2014 with a bidder's conference scheduled for Nov. 3, 2014 and proposals due by Nov. 18, 2014 - one week before this development agreement would reach its first opportunity for City Council approval.
IMPACT STATEMENT FROM PREVIOUS MEMO: A financial forecast of anticipated operational expenses conducted by Sikich (attached) determined that simply combining the existing occupancy and overhead costs of the four core, non-profit partners (Triple Threat Mentoring, Communities In Schools, Boy Scouts national foundation and Community 4:12) results in enough positive cash flow to pay all operational expenses including the hiring of additional operational staff. Therefore, the establishment of these two inter-dependent and innovative centers will not only make it possible to sustain a community center in one of the City's highest need neighborhoods with primarily existing resources, but it will help all of the nonprofits involved operate more efficiently and reach more high-need residents. Moreover, several other non-profits such as Family Focus, Boys II Men, the Ballet Folklorico and YWCA-Metro Chicago are also expected to be able to benefit from regular access to space in both the community center and non-profit collaboration center.
cc: Alderman O'Connor, Chairman
Alderman Mervine
Alderman Bohman
Alderman Peters, Alternate
CITY OF AURORA, ILLINOIS
RESOLUTION NO. _________
DATE OF PASSAGE ________________
title
A Resolution Authorizing the Execution of a Development Agreement with the Boy Scouts of America Three Fires Council.
body
WHEREAS, the City of Aurora has a population of more than 25,000 persons and is, therefore, a home rule unit under subsection (a) of Section 6 of Article VII of the Illinois Constitution of 1970; and
WHEREAS, subject to said Section, a home rule unit may exercise any power and perform any function pertaining to its government and affairs for the protection of the public health, safety, morals, and welfare; and
WHEREAS, in 2012, the City sold its Community Center on the Near-East Side Aurora to the East Aurora School District to be re-converted to a school (The Fred Rogers STEM Magnet Academy); and
WHEREAS, for the past two years, the City has been working closely with a consortium of non-profits led by the Boy Scouts of America to bring community center space to the City's NRSA area where the Fred Rogers Center had been located; and
WHEREAS, the Boy Scouts of America have received the donation of an 18,000+ square foot building located at 62 - 64 S. LaSalle Street; and
WHEREAS, the State of Illinois has tentatively approved a grant in the amount of $341,000 to provide the necessary funding to cover the costs of an elevator and other egress and life safety code issues; and
WHEREAS, the grant agreement with the State requires an executed development agreement between the Boy Scouts and the City of Aurora that just covers the portion of the project that can be opened using the State grant funding and where the work will be completed;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED by the City Council of the City of Aurora, Illinois, as follows: does hereby authorize the execution of the Development Agreement between the City of Aurora and the Boy Scouts of America Three Fires Council.
PASSED AND APPROVED on ______________.
AYES ____ NAYS ____ NOT VOTING ____ ABSENT ____
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Alderman Bohman, Ward 1 Alderman Garza, Ward 2
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Alderman Mesiacos, Ward 3 Alderman Donnell, Ward 4
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Alderman Peters, Ward 5 Alderman Saville, Ward 6
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Alderman Hart-Burns, Ward 7 Alderman Mervine, Ward 8
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Alderman Bugg, Ward 9 Alderman Johnson, Ward 10
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Alderman Irvin, At Large Alderman O'Connor, At Large
ATTEST:
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City Clerk Mayor