Sunday, September 3, 2006

Suisun considers consultant for Old town projects

From Daily Republic
By Ian Thompson

SUISUN CITY - The Suisun City Council votes Tuesday whether to bring long-time city consultant ROMA Design Group into the effort to design and build the centerpiece projects of the Main Street West redevelopment project.

Councilmembers, sitting as the Redevelopment Agency, will consider two agreements Tuesday night.

One will hire ROMA as an on-call consultant on any projects coming before the Redevelopment Agency and a second hires ROMA as an on-call consultant for two buildings which the developer Main Street West Partners wants to build on either side of Solano Street on Main Street's east side.

The cost of the first agreement is open-ended, depending on how many projects ROMA looks at. The second will cost about $125,000.

It has been more than a year since Suisun City entered into exclusive negotiations with Main Street West to become the master developer and jump-start redevelopment efforts along Main Street.

It has been four months since the city sold 8.4 acres of downtown lots to the developer and work has yet to start.

More recently, the city sold Main Street West the vacant Crystal School site to build homes on with a proviso some of the money made from the homes go to commercial projects elsewhere in Old Town.

The developer promised earlier this year to start construction as early as this summer and there is talk of a groundbreaking for the two-building centerpiece project some time in September.

ROMA has been with Suisun City as a consultant on several downtown projects for a couple of years. It was part of the city/community workshops that came up with the plan to hire a master developer for the Old Town area and to build the lighthouse.

The Suisun City Council meets at 7 p.m. Tuesday in the Suisun City Council chamber at 701 Civic Center Blvd.

Reach Ian Thompson at 427-6976 or at ithompson@dailyrepublic.net.

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