Speaking of pushing things down people’s throats, PART director Brent McKinney is in the news again, this time in support of a proposed $50 million residential and transportation project near Winston-Salem State University.
You guessed it, public funding will be involved:
Bill Cannon, one of the lead developers, said he will likely ask for an arrangement similar to the deal that the proposed downtown ballpark got. In the ballpark deal, the Winston-Salem City Council agreed to a loan and tax-incentive package that will cost $29 million over 25 years.
The project, at the Davis Garage, would be called Excelsior Street Station. It includes the renovation of the old Union Station rail depot into a transit station for buses and possibly commuter-rail service. Next door, developers plan to build a 17-story building with apartments, offices and retail space…..
Greg Turner, an assistant city manager, said that the city is waiting for an environmental study of the site to be completed before discussing financing options.
“They’ve asked about that possibility (of public financing), and we said at the appropriate time we’d certainly be willing to talk about specifics,” Turner said.
Initially, PART is interested in providing bus service through the transit station. Naturally, McKinney has bigger plans:
“When the passenger-rail service comes in, we think the location of this station would be an excellent location. We will need some office spaces and attendant services to provide information and sell tickets and passes and just provide overall supervision.”
Note that McKinney said ‘when,’ not ‘if.’ He must be pretty confident about commuter rail in the Triad.
