It looks like 3-3-3 on PCI; Shields or Gulick could be the crucial vote

Mayor Ron Corbett started saying weeks ago that he had the votes on the nine-member City Council to give Physicians' Clinic of Iowa what it wants in incentives in exchange a $36-million investment in a new medical building.

Corbett has stopped saying that.

With a public hearing and a first vote on the PCI plan set for the Tuesday evening council meeting, the mayor and council member Chuck Swore remain firmly committed to the PCI proposal, which includes significant economic development incentives from the city as well as a PCI request that the city close Second Avenue SE from 10th to 12th streets SE.

“It's not a zero-sum game where someone has to win and someone has to lose,” the mayor said Friday afternoon. “This is a situation where we all win: We retain jobs, we create jobs and the community continues its momentum.”

Council members Monica Vernon, Don Karr and Chuck Wieneke have now lined up on the other side. They say they support the incentive package that the council offered PCI back in January, which they add is worth something between $8 million and $10 million. But they say they cannot now support the extra millions of dollars of costs, which Vernon says could easily reach another $10 million, or the headaches that they say will come with closing a portion of Second Avenue SE and making changes to other streets in the area.

“Paying over $20 million for this project is too much,” Vernon said this week.

Wieneke said other needs in the emerging medical district will go without help if all the city's money goes to the PCI project.

Meanwhile, council member Tom Podzimek said this week that he is leaning toward supporting the PCI proposal. He said that 50 years from now the city will view its investment in the PCI project as an important step in establishing a medical district that stretches from St. Luke's Hospital to Mercy Medical Center. “Fifteen years of negative impacts” that will result in changes to the street grid are worth the long-term benefit, he said.

Council members Justin Shields and Kris Gulick on Friday said they were still trying to sort the issues out, especially financial issues, which was the view expressed by council member Pat Shey a week ago. Shey, though, said the medical district could be a “game-changer” for the city.

The PCI proposal calls for using property-tax revenue from PCI's new investment to pay off the city's upfront costs for a parking ramp, street changes and other incentives. Gulick wants to see if the PCI investment is able, in fact, to accomplish that.

Gulick suggested that the scheduled City Council vote on Tuesday evening on the Second Avenue closing might be a muddled affair. He said the council likely will cast votes on the matter over the course of three meetings.

He said he will need to see the financial details of a final development agreement between the city and PCI before he casts any final vote on Second Avenue SE or any other part of the PCI proposal.