Who was minding the store?
To understand the importance of the Kinsey Probasco Associates contract with the City of Knoxville for the Market Square project you must first look at the proposal and the meetings the City had with KPA prior to issuing the KPA contract. There were two main components of the KPA sales pitch. First was the project would be a joint venture of public and private monies. Second, it would pay for itself by increasing sales tax revenues to the City.
When you look in the KPA proposal or the Will Malone report you see the City was to invest 41 million dollars in Market Square renovations, a movie theater, and a 348 space parking garage. That is a lot of taxpayer money. KPA was to invest 22 million dollars for 64 condos above the parking garage, tenant improvements to Market Square, and renovations to put condos and offices in the Amsouth and Charter Federal Buildings. The public money was invested but the private money was not.
In the sales tax projections section of the KPA proposal the City is to receive a sales tax surplus of $ 442,870 in year one, $ 871,197 in year two, and $ 1,070,456 in year three. You can read in the Will Malone report of 2002 to the City that Malone warned the City that KPA’s projections were inflated and were risky. KPA projected $ 328 sales per square foot but Malone warned that $ 125 sales per square foot were the realistic figure.
Now we understand how the sales pitch was made the question remains, why did the 22 million dollars of private investment that was the key component of this deal not make it onto the contract between the City of Knoxville and Kinsey Probasco Associates? Was this oversight, incompetence, or intervention?
Below is a listing of where you can find the KPA proposal and other documents about the Market Square project of 2002 to 2004.
If you are a member of k2k you can read these documents:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/k2k/files/marketsquare/
Will Malone Redevelopment Report
KPA response for Market Square Proposal
Market Square Advisory Board Final Report
