Vets Building won’t be ready for city offices until summer

Delays in the start of the renovation of the flood-damaged Veterans Memorial Building now mean it will be next summer, at the soonest, before the City Council returns to the historic building on May's Island, city officials said on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Veterans Memorial Commission Monday night hinted that an answer to the long-debated question about the building - Does the commission or the city “own” it? - may be close to being answered.

And some on the commission aren't pleased with what they might hear.

The question of ownership, which has never been far from the minds of commission members over the years, has reasserted itself now as the city and the commission prepare to sign a contract agreement with the state of Iowa in order to receive $4.4 million from the state I-JOBS Program to help renovate the building.

The Iowa Legislature, though, designated the grant to the city, not the commission.

The agreement with the state and the city approved by the commission last night works hard to dodge the question of the ownership of the Veterans Memorial Building, which has been home to City Hall since it opened in the late 1920s.

The agreement states that building is “managed and controlled” by the commission. Further, the agreement states that the renovation project will be built exclusively on real property “that is owned by the city or over which the city has permanent easement.” At another point, the agreement says the city “has good, indefeasible and merchantable title to and ownership or valid rights under easement or lease of the real property … ”

Mike Jager, the building manager for the commission, on Monday emphasized the word “or” in the agreement, which he says leaves the final answer to the question of ownership up in the air.

However, Gary Grant, current chairman of the commission, reported to commission members last night that the city has obtained an opinion of title of ownership, which was not a part of the agreement approved last night by the commission. Grant said “my guess” is that the title opinion concludes that the city, not the commission, owns the building.

In any event, Grant called on the commission to approve the I-JOBS agreement to get the renovation project at the Veterans Memorial Building moving ahead. Grant said Mayor Ron Corbett and City Manager Jeff Pomeranz have given the commission “wide latitude” on how to use the building and have agreed to work with the commission to address its concerns about ownership. He asked the commission to take “a leap of faith” that the two will follow through.

The commission unanimously approved the agreement.

Grant noted that the Corbett and Pomeranz have asked to use only 15,000 square feet of the building for city offices and meeting spaces, which he said is less than half of what the city had used before the flood. They recognize that the commission wants to expand the veterans' presence in the building, he said.

Jager noted that, as of now, the city has made requests for space on floors three through six on the Second Avenue side of the building with no requests for space on the First Avenue side of the building.

Longtime commission member George Hamman said he's listened to the city-commission debate over ownership of the Veterans Memorial Building for 50 years, and he added, “What difference does it make?” The taxpayers own it, he said.

Nonetheless, commission member Pat Reinert said he worried about any agreement about ownership based on “a handshake and a smile” with current city leaders that could vanish with a change in City Hall leadership. The city clearly owns the land under the building, he said.

Commission member Jerry Ziese said the early language related to the building stated that the commission had the right to borrow money against its value, which he said is an authority given to owners. But he and Reinert both weren't sure what the status of that language is today.

For his part, Mayor Corbett last night said the city's central interest is to get some of the city's functions back into the building even as it puts some city offices nearby in the former federal courthouse, now called the City Services Facility. It also is being renovated.

Earlier this year, the council thought it would be back in the Veterans Memorial Building in February 2011.

However, Greg Eyerly, the city's flood-recovery director, said Monday he now hoped a first council meeting might be held the renovated building on June 14, 2011, at the third anniversary of June 2008 flood.

A frustrated Jager said the commission and city have been in “a holding pattern” on the renovation, waiting for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the state of Iowa to sign off on the renovation plans.

FEMA will spend $12.1 million for the renovation and is expected to spend an additional $3 million to help protect the building from future flood damage. The state's I-JOBS grant of $4.4 million will pay for upgrades to the building that FEMA will not pay for.

However, Jager noted that the state Homeland Security and Emergency Management Division has advised the city not to begin the renovation of the Veterans Memorial Building until FEMA has approved the renovation plans. Beginning before then could jeopardize FEMA funding, the state has told the city.