City Council, December 4th - Redeveloping the old General Hospital Site

For Council's meeting on Monday, a late add is really the only item of interest. It's a temporary arrangement for the City to "buy" the old General Hospital property, hold it for a short term, and then flip it to the developer for the affordable housing project.

The City has been asked to help facilitate the conveyance of approximately 10.6 acres located at the 2500 block of Center Street, NE from Salem Health to Green Light-HomeFirst, LLC (Green Light) for the purpose of Green Light developing affordable housing on the property. Under the tentative agreement reached by the parties, the City will take an assignment of the existing purchase and sale agreement between Salem Health and Green Light and execute a new purchase and sale agreement to convey the property to Green Light.

Location, with site context notes added

And further detail:

1. City will take an assignment of the sale agreement between Salem Health and Green-Light;
2. City will close and acquire the property no later than January 31, 2024,
3. City will not be required to pay the purchase price of $3,833,715 ($4,000,000, less Green Light paid earnest money and other set offs) until December 31, 2024;
4. City will execute a purchase and sale agreement with Green Light to convey the property to Green Light for $3,833,715;
5. Close of the sale to Green Light anticipated to occur by October 1, 2024, however, Green Light can extend through January 2025;
6. Green Light will pay City a $50,000 transaction fee to compensate for the City’s costs in facilitating the transaction;
7. Green Light will lease the property from the City for no money and will be required to maintain and insure the property until the sale to Green Light is completed.
8. The property is the home to the former Salem General Hospital and adjacent to the Oregon State Hospital Grounds and the Housing Authority’s Yaquina Hall. Preliminary site investigations indicate the potential for burial sites which may include Native Americans who were patients at the hospital many years ago. Prior to the City acquiring the property, the Green Light will perform Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to determine if there are objects underneath the property and if they will pose an issue for redevelopment of the site. Green Light will share the results of the GPR work with the City. Based on currently known information regarding the site and discussions with City historic preservation staff, it is very unlikely that the location of burial site on the property, if any, will substantially affect development of the property for affordable housing.

Hopefully it will all work out. 

• See at Salem Reporter for more on the project concept, which includes a chunk of State funding, "Affordable development with 120 new apartments planned for northeast Salem."

Also on the agenda are a couple of second readings of some interest:

• Adoption of the five year update to the Floodplain Management Plan (This hasn't seemed to occasion much comment.)
• Second Reading for enactment of annexing a 48 acre parcel in south Salem. (Some good discussion at our Strong Towns group and a Council discussion group.)
• Reclassifying Landaggard and Colorado Drives in West Salem. The citizen critique was not persuasive for Council, and it will now be interesting to see if any appeal is made to LUBA. (See previous notes on Landaggard here.)

Not on the agenda at all, but very pleasant to note, the paper has an announcement of a concept to redevelop the D. A. White warehouse and Boise building on the corner of Front and State, right at the entry to Riverfront Park.

In the paper today

The Boise building has a nice storefront system oriented to the sidewalk, and also parking. It's another building used by an old automotive dealership! It's just so hard to believe there's not a way to make hum that corner and entry to the park.

December 23rd, 1919

The warehouse (c.1900) is pretty shabby and needs work. Its frontage only on Front Street also makes it more challenging to reuse, since it is not likely to have incidental foot traffic in the way the Boise building on State Street will have.

This will be a very interesting story to follow in the next year or two!