Some on Cedar Rapids council have questions for The Roosevelt

CEDAR RAPIDS - Some on the City Council aren't happy about a new, $600,000 expense at the city's Convention Complex project that is the result of a need to build new stairs at The Roosevelt apartments to provide a secondary exit from the building.

Some on the council are equally unhappy that the recent, $12-million-plus renovation of The Roosevelt with the use of federal tax credits and some city dollars has done nothing to fix up the eyesore of the backside of the building that faces Interstate 380 and will loom above the new convention center.

Council member Chuck Swore noted that Sherman Associates Inc. of Minneapolis, which is the owner of The Roosevelt, was selected in the months before the 2008 flood by the council to be the council's “preferred” downtown developer. The council picked Sherman in a stiff competition because of its reputation for quality development.

“I'd like to remind the preferred developer that they have some responsibility in this issue,” Swore said about the expense over the new stairs.

According to a city staff report, the new stairs are needed now because The Roosevelt removed emergency stairs on the north side of the building in the renovation and relied on the privately owned parking garage next door to provide the emergency exit from the building. Now, the parking garage is slated for demolition - as is everything else in the block except for The Roosevelt - to make way for the new convention center.

Swore said he needed to know if Sherman Associates intended to help the city pay for the new stairs.

Council member Monica Vernon also asked City Manager Jeff Pomeranz to see what The Roosevelt intended to do with the backside exterior of its building.

Pomeranz said he would check. He noted that simply painting the brick on The Roosevelt's backside wouldn't provide a long-term solution, and he suggested that some sort of acid-wash treatment might be required.

Last night was not the first time a council member had wondered about The Roosevelt's exterior.

Asked about it two weeks ago, Jackie Nickolaus, Sherman Associates vice president in Urbandale, Iowa, said her firm agreed the backside of the building “would benefit from being repainted,” but she said she was focusing more on the stairs issue right now.

She added that the side of The Roosevelt now attached to the parking ramp likely will have “cosmetic issues” once the ramp is demolished. Those issues and the building's backside may best be addressed together, she said.

“Of course, funding is always a concern,” she said.