A Jefferson City panel Friday agreed to spend $50,000 to solicit offers to redevelop the 32-acre Missouri State Penitentiary site.
The Missouri Office of Administration transferred land on the MSP property to the city in August under an agreement between the city and state. At a Friday meeting of the Missouri State Penitentiary Community Partners - a board made up of Jefferson City, Cole County and local economic development officials - the group agreed to give developers up to $50,000 in lodging tax funds to entice them to submit bids for the project.
The committee reviewed a draft of a request for qualification (RFQ) that the committee plans to send to developers next month. The RFQ will seek background information on developers' qualifications and interest in building a development on the site. The city plans to vet developers first to see whether they are capable of building a project on the property before it formally reviews proposals.
If the Jefferson City Council approves the use of the money, the stipend could be given to developers after requests for proposals (RFP) are submitted. Members of the committee said the stipend is intended to offset some of the costs of preparing requests for proposals.
"There is a goal to make people take this seriously and really draw competitive proposals that are as close to a final product as possible at this point," Jefferson City Counselor Ryan Moehlman said.
Randy Allen, Jefferson City Area Chamber of Commerce president, said the stipend could be given during the RFP process to all applicants that are asked to apply if they meet criteria laid out by the group.
"It ensures a quality product," Allen said.
Moehlman said the city expects two to five firms to apply during the RFQ process. The stipend for the RFP process could allocate $10,000 per bid or disburse the stipends in other amounts. Members of the committee did not vote on how the money would be distributed, but voted only to approve the expenditure.
Mark Grimm, an attorney with St. Louis law firm Gilmore Bell, is assisting the city with the project. Grimm said developers his firm has talked to estimated it may cost $20,000-$30,000 to put together a proposal.
"If you're covering a significant portion of that, several of the folks we talked to thought it would show that the city is serious about this and the fix isn't in for a particular developer," Grimm said.
Committee members debated whether the city had the authority to spend lodging tax funds on the stipends if bidders are not required to include proposals for a convention center on the MSP site. Since voters approved a lodging tax increase in 2011, the 7-cent fund has collected about $8.37 million. The 4-cent tourism fund has about $4.89 million.
Diane Gillespie, Jefferson City Convention and Visitors Bureau executive director, and Ward 2 Councilman Rick Mihalevich argued the lodging tax is broad enough it includes tourism uses.
"People think of it as a conference center, but it's got to have some tourism element or we can't use the lodging tax for it," Mihalevich said. "We had an endorsement to use this money for this process as long as it would consider a convention center."
Gillespie said the guidelines should ask developers to consider whether a conference center will work on the MSP site.
"We need to get it out there and find out if it is (doable)," Gillespie said. "If it isn't, we need to go to Plan B."
Moehlman said the funds will not be misused even if all developers show a conference center is not viable on the MSP site.
"If we get three RFPs back and none of them include a conference center, that's valuable information," Moehlman said. "So it's not like it's a misallocation of those resources."