November 22, 2024 • 32 mins
From 11/18/2024
Guests:
Les Carrier, Hilliard City Council https://hilliardohio.gov/city-council/
Fadi Suleiman and Dr. Ronney Abaza, Noor Islamic Cultural Center Noor Islamic Cultural Center
Guests:
Les Carrier, Hilliard City Council https://hilliardohio.gov/city-council/
Fadi Suleiman and Dr. Ronney Abaza, Noor Islamic Cultural Center Noor Islamic Cultural Center
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Greeting salitations. Welcome my friends to another edition of the
Power Hour.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Chuck.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Unless you allegedly know who you are. We take it
from there. We get one hour together, which means I
talk really, really fast, and you must listen even faster.
The number eight two one nine eight eighty six eight
two one WTVN or eight hundred six ' ten wtv IN.
If you've listened to any period of time you've been
around with me anytime, you know I'm a Central Ohio guy,
born and raised Columbus, Ohio, Westside West High Cowboy for.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The rest of my life. Love of many of our suburbs,
dislike a couple of them, but Hilliard is right up
there at the top for me. I love Hilliard. I
love old downtown Hilliard. I love those summertime Thursday afternoons
when all those people gather in a peaceful way and
they enjoy the band and the food and the just
the camaraderie of living there and being a part of
(00:52):
this big, you know, city wide family in Hilliard. That's
what it feels like up there. And I've seen so
many things develop, so many positive things, so much momentum commercially, residentially,
it's it. It's inspiring, especially, you know, as we clawed
our way through COVID and all the ridiculousness is the
(01:12):
past decade or so. It's been an uphill battle. But
Hilliard has done very, very well, which is why when
I saw this story about a week and a half ago,
I I was distressed because I didn't understand. There is
a large commercial parcel up there, and one of the
voices you'll hear in the studio tonight is a commercial realtor,
(01:32):
so he'll be able to tell us all about that
BMW credit was there. Okay, big office building and it
sits empty, doing nothing. So this group comes to Hilliard
and says, hey, we like to do something involving a
community center, an education center, cultural center, and it is Yes,
(01:55):
there are religious implications to it, but my god, this
is America. What's the problem there except the fact that
maybe this building wouldn't generate as much tax money used
that way as it would if it was used for
another financial services industry or something like that. But it
seemed to me when I heard this story, this will
be a very positive and productive use for this growing,
(02:18):
vibrant community. So I thought, yay, they acquired it back,
and I believe it was March and brought the plan
to develop it and change it and turn it into
something instead of an empty hulk, and then it got
stolled in front of the city council and I could
not figure that out to save myself. Well, I'm kind
(02:41):
of starting to figure things out now as I've paid
a little bit more attention. I've got two ourpresentatives from
newer Islamic Cultural Center. Is that the official title, as
well as a member of the Hilliard City Council in
studio tonight, let's get to the bottom thing, gentlemen, would
you let's go left to right here if you'd introduce
yourself like they can see what direction you're sitting, but
(03:03):
introduce yourself to everybody who you are.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So my name is doctor Ronnie of Baza and Chuck.
As we were talking earlier, I'm a urologist, but I
also happened to be the chairman of the board of
nor Islamic Cultural Center, and so this issue is very
near and dear to my heart, obviously, and thank you
so much for bringing this to your audience.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thank you. And in the middle of the room that
would be you looking at me.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yes, good evening. My name's Least Carrier. I've a longer
serving member on Hillard City Council and I'm here tonight
to talk about, you know, my concerns and some of
what I saw in the last couple of days and
as I reflect upon it so and also to answer
to your questions that I can. You know, I'm one
of seven and it was a very tough night last Monday,
(03:49):
and I think a lot of folks were surprised.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Okay, my name is Faddi Suliman. I'm a member of
the nor Islamic Cultural Center, and also I has been
in practicing real estate at Columbus for the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
You guys all, First of all, I want to commend
you and tell you how much I appreciate you for
even coming here tonight, because I know this has been
a rough situation. But there was a scheduling issue where
I thought the hill your Counsel was meeting tomorrow night,
which they are not. It won't be until next week.
But Less was not going to be here until Wednesday
(04:25):
according to my calendar. However, he thought it was tonight,
so he came and I thought, oh my gosh, they're
not going to want to do this together. I commend
all three of you for saying, yeah, let's let's go
in and talk about this. Was great and I appreciate
you being that, you know, that kind of person, all
three of you for saying, yeah, let's come in and
talk about this, which the world could use more of
in every aspect, So thank you for that. Gentlemen. Let's
(04:49):
let's start from the real estate perspective. I'm assuming you
helped in the acquisition here of the building, and was
there any indication upfront that there was going to be
any kind of difficulty, any any major hurdles in redeveloping
and following through with this plan once the building was purchased.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
No. Keep in mind, this building was the headquarters for
BMW Financials for quite some time, almost eighteen years, and
the city of Hilliard knew that this building is going
to go vacant back in March twenty twenty one, so
they had heads up. They knew it was going to
go vacant, but the actual loan default took place in
(05:25):
about the end of last year twenty twenty three, and
the owners tried to lease the building, which is about
two hundred and twenty five thousand square feet, four stories tall,
and it's essentially one hundred percent vacant. They tried to
lease it for about a year and they couldn't get
any traction. Not one inch of space was leased, so
(05:47):
it was defaulted. We was on the auction. The auction
was for the note, and several bidders were on the auction,
and we, the nor Islamic Cultural Center, won the bid
for the or the note, and we went through the
process to actually take the deed from the prior owner.
So that process took us about four months and we
(06:08):
officially had the deed in hand in March of twenty
twenty Ford this year, and since then we've been working
with the city try to do the things that we
proposed to do, and it wasn't a very welcoming environment,
to be honest. From day one, we felt the resistance
and that the city was not really necessarily liking the
proposals that we put on the table. They had some
(06:30):
other things in mind that they were not necessarily transparent about.
But we start to realize what those things are along
the process and we can dig into that details. But
keep in mind the thing from a business side, as
we talk about the process and on the business side,
the real estate market when it comes to office space
has been just essentially destroyed. We all know how bad
(06:51):
the office market is. We all know there's about millions
of square feet of space setting empty, not just in
Hilliard in Dublin, but throughout central Ohio and within fifteen
mile radius from that building alone, there's about six million
square feet of space that's sitting empty. So to sit
there and I guess hope that this building will get
occupied by an office user, that's just wishful thinking. And
(07:15):
we want to be more proactive to actually do something
intentional and that will bring something different to the environment,
especially to that corridor that's been sitting. Truthfully, there's not
a whole lot of activity in that corridor. If you
drive by, that corridor is fairly quiet. So we wanted
to do something different that will bring in some vibrancy
to the market, bringing vibrancy to that corridor and through that.
(07:39):
That's where our proposal came in, with the intention to
repurpose the whole building into various uses, including a daycare,
a stem business incubator that will occupy about twenty thousand
square feet of office space. We have an event center
that will occupy about fifteen thousand square feet of space.
We also have a co working space that will take
(08:00):
about ten thousand square feet at a minimum, a restaurant, use,
a coffee shop, use office space, medical office including different
specialty specialties, and also utilizing the existing restaurant commercial kitchen
in that building, which is a class A commercial kitchen
that's been sitting empty also since last year. So we
(08:22):
proposed those things to City of Hilliard. Including those uses
was a small use for a not for profit purpose.
So the intention overall was to commercialize ninety percent of
the building into businesses and retain about ten percent for
not for profit purposes.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And that was the stumbling block. The not for profit
ten percent is that where they seem to put up
a wall.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
The stumbling blocks were many, if you ask me truthfully,
there was never really an honest, honest feedback from the
city on what is bothering them? What do you not
like to see? It's been almost one hundred percent. We
will let us hear what you got and we'll get
(09:07):
back with you. We proposed the proposals that we just
mentioned earlier, and the feedback has been well can you
do this without having a school. We have a user
who wants to do forty thousand square feet fifty thousand
square feet of school. Can you do it without the school?
And we said no, we have to have a school.
It's a private school and they're going to be leasing
space just like anybody else. So that didn't go very well.
(09:30):
But you know, for me to be honest as an
outsider looking in, when you just unplug yourself and plug
yourself back in, you look back and say, was this
a hospitable environment from day one? And I can tell
you it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And wouldn't you say the city? I want to differentiate
here city staff that you deal with with the zoning
or how is there a difference in how you feel
like you're being treated when dealing with city council versus
the city staff.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Well as far as city staff, most of our dealing
have been with city staff, including the city manager and
Economic Development director and some other city staff members. But
from day one, if you're a developer walking into a
city looking to bring in jobs and bring in development
and repurpose something that's been sitting empty for a long time,
(10:16):
I would think the message would be thank you for
coming to my city. We are happy to have you here.
How can we help you make this better? How can
we develop something together that will make the city more
welcoming and this project more profitable. To the contrary, the
feedback we got from first day was we are willing
to wait on another five years until the office market
(10:39):
comes back. That's not a statement you dish out because
you want to be cooperative. That's not a statement you
dish out to any developer who's coming to the city
to bring in jobs. You should be a de Chanella's statement,
Thank you, We're happy to have you. We know this
building has been sitting empty for a long time. Let's
do something with it together. When you throw out these
(11:00):
statements that really just kind of like block the conversation
from moving forward. That just gives you a tone of
how the next steps are going to go. And consequently
they did not go very well from that point.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Well, yeah, obviously there have been a couple of stumbling blocks,
less carriers, he said. The longest serving member of Hilliard
City Council correct does does what you are hearing right there?
Does that sound like an accurate depiction of what you
have witnessed as you watch this thing developed.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah. I think.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Jack said, can you hit the microphone a little bit
more directly here so.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
We can hear it. That's okay, I'm a rookie at
this radio. Anyway, we have proses. I think that is
a very accurate understan my understanding of what's happened. And
I think that comes from a perspective of where as
soon as the Nore reached out to me, I was
open arms and saying, yeah, let's talk about it now.
(11:54):
I understand that's been on an overlay of a lot
of political issues that's happening internationally. We've got the Gaza situation,
which is horrible for everybody, right, and then you have
this group that comes forward, it's a large part of
our community, has been established in our community for a
long time and says, hey, we want to redevelop an
empty building and we want to commercialize it and bring
(12:15):
mixed uses to it in a way that you're probably
not used to staying in terms of mixed use. So
I sat down and I gotcha. It had to have
been I met you what in March March I have
It's been a long time, and it just to understand
what their vision was now, I also, as a council member,
have prior knowledge of others that have been interested in
(12:36):
that building or that the city has tried to move
into that building. And that's where I started to get
really concerned about what was going on here, because in
between the emptying of the BMW folks out of that
building and meeting with the NORE, I knew that we
(12:57):
were trying to get the schools, the publics schools, to
move their operations center out of Columbus back into Hilliard,
into Hillard city limits, and they have a pretty big
operation down.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
On Atlas Drive.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I also had some understanding that they were trying to
bring in an educational space within that move. So I'm
sitting here looking at it, going wait a minute now.
The city manager denied that on the record at the
last council meeting that there was any educational space being
considered with the move for the operational jobs with Atlas Drive,
(13:34):
and that doctor Marshause when she talked to doctor doctor Marshause,
she also, I had to I had to check the record,
but if I remember served me right. She also indicated
she did not talk to doctor Dave Stewart about who's
the current superintendent of your schools. I'm not sure that's correct,
and I'll find we'll find that out as we go
through this process. But in any event, I get this
(13:56):
picture of, Hey, we were going to have a school
or school operations come in to the building two years
ago as it was vacating, and now these folks want
to come and they want to bring enterprise and you know,
an education and experience to our community and bring quite frankly,
something a new model, right, it's a new model for
kids to learn. I took the time to learn a
(14:17):
little bit about those programs, and I thought, this is cool,
this is new, this is cutting edge stuff. They only
have this in Dallas. I think it's Dallas, right, yep.
And so I literally had to call other council members
who were told by the city manager not to meet
with the newer community, and say, hey, come listen to
these guys. This is pretty cool stuff. So I became
(14:38):
pretty disenheartened about the process that was coming forward. My
guess is is the city My understanding is is the
city had different bidders that were lined up for the facility,
and the NORE won the bidding process, and that wasn't
their expectation, but I don't know if you'll ever you
know that that's going to come out sooner or later.
So you know, from my seat in the policy level
(15:02):
making seat as a council member, you want number one,
you want it to be a vibrant community. You want
it to be a vibrant piece of property. The question becomes,
and this is really what bothered me, is well, what's
the standard we're going to operate under? And I don't
think that's where it breaks down for me. And that
goes back to the Comprehensive Plan that the city passed
(15:25):
the last fall, and we had a pretty contentious debate
about that and what to certain areas of the city
going to look like. And you can see through the
comp plan there's a lot of urbanization. And what I
mean by that is we're going to go vertical with
residential and mixed use properties. So they want to go
vertical and mix up the uses with apartments and you
(15:45):
see all that stuff where you've got retail on the
bottom floor, apartments up top. There's a lot of I'm
going to tell you right now, there's going to be
another train wreck in Hillard when they do to do that.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
In Old Hilliard.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Old Hillard is a neat little area that, yes it is,
and so you're going to have these these discussions. And
that's what I see here. I see what the really
boils down to is what a difference in opinion as
to what true mixed use is really going to be.
And they're bringing a lot of different some nonprofit mixed uses,
some profitable mixed uses, some creativity, some innovation. You're bringing
(16:18):
all these things in this cauldron, and who knows what
spins out of that, but my guess it's going to
be pretty cool, right.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
You know, a couple of minutes on television does not
do the story justice. I am talking about the development,
and I don't know what you call it a controversy,
because it is kind of controversial. Out of the Hillyard area.
The BMW Financial building sitting abandoned, doing nothing, just basically
being being a hulk, and somebody comes along buys it
(16:47):
back in March and says, we've got plans, we'd like
to do this. We have this idea and it sounds great,
but it's stalled out almost immediately, it seems, because they
just purchased the building back in March. And the reason
it's stalled. Is kind of be me. Now we've heard
(17:08):
from from Fatty, We've heard from our council member, from
from Hilliard. I've also got doctor of baza here in
the studio who is from the nor Islamic Community Center. I imagine,
as you know, kind of you're not in the business
end of this. This is more of the as a
concern part of this organization. You've got to be standing
(17:32):
off in the background, really suspicious of everything that's happened
at this point. I don't know how else I would
take it. I'm a reasonable person. I don't see I
don't see you know, racism or discrimination around every corner.
But from your perspective on, you know, you've got to
be wondering what I have to assume. At least maybe
(17:52):
I'm wrong about that, but it seems like this would
be a very perplexing situation for you.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, Chuck, let me tell you why your listener should
be concerned about this. There's really two different reasons, and
really particularly your listeners you know more than anyone else.
There's the issue of property rights and government overreach, which
I know your listeners are not happy about. And there's
the issue of religious rights, something we have in this
(18:19):
country called the First Amendment. These two issues really are
at the crux of this situation, in this conflict, and
I'll tell you why. As Fadi said earlier, when we
first had our meeting, the very first meeting between us
and the city manager and her team, and we're hearing
we're willing to wait five years until the office market
(18:40):
comes back. Essentially, that's the Hilliard City government telling us
that you bought this building, you own this building outright,
but we wanted to sit there empty, and you're going
to have to keep paying the bills for five years
until somebody comes and rents it like BMW Financial. Does
that get under your skin?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Absolutely, it's yours. You should be able to use it
within the boundaries the law any way that you choose
to use it. And if the law is this restrictive,
then perhaps.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
That needs to be looked at so exactly, and that's
what we've said from day one, is that, look, there
are zoning laws in the City of Hilliard. There's a
comprehensive plan, and we are making a proposal that fits
it completely. We're not asking for something outside of the law,
anything that is prohibited by the comprehensive plan prohibited by
(19:31):
the PUD. We're not asking for anything that is really
outside of the pill We're basically asking for the ability
to redevelop this empty building and commercialize ninety percent of it.
Bring in. Ninety percent is going to be businesses, businesses
that rent from us. The school is going to rent
(19:52):
space from us, the daycare is going to rent space
from us, the restaurant, the coffee shop, all the medical
offices and yes, the premium office, even the Discover stem
is going to rent space from us. We're going to
pay property tax on all of that space. And we
just asked for about ten percent of the space. It
was actually nine percent, nine percent of the building that
(20:13):
we could use for our nonprofit to be a community
center for us to gather for religious activities, prayer services,
interfaith activities, dinners, parties, whatever it may be. And that
ended up being, to our surprise, the biggest issue of
contention with the city manager her staff. They did not
(20:34):
want us to have this community center. And this is
the religious rights side of this issue and why your
listeners should be unhappy about this and how it played
out Chuck on the night of the city council meeting,
the city staff really pulled the wool over the eyes
(20:54):
of the city council. And I'll tell you how in
this building we asked for permission to have an event center,
an event center, which we explained to the city manager
and her staff that this is like the McCoy Center. Basically,
we have an operator who wants to come and rent
fifteen thousand square feet of our building and then use
that space for graduation parties, bar mitzvah's weddings, et cetera,
(21:19):
et cetera, all the types of things that would happen
at McCoy Center any other event hall. So that event center,
again is going to be least to somebody who's going
to pay us rent and then have parties there that
they do, you know, that they know make money off of.
So the city staff says at the city council meeting that, well,
(21:44):
they can pray in the event hall. Chuck, you have
no idea how you can pray in the event You
have no idea. How offensive that was? They might as
they do. They might as well have said to us,
well they can pray in the daycare. So we're asking
for nine percent of this building, twenty thousand square feet
(22:06):
that we can use for our community center. And it's
not just for prayers.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Obviously our main center, which is less than a mile
away on Wilcox, is being used all day, every day
for all sorts of activities. So this community center that
we ask for nine percent of the building, they're denying us, rejecting,
and they're telling us, well, you can always pray in
the event hall. So you know, again, there's two big
(22:30):
issues here that your listeners should be concerned about, property rights,
government overreach telling you how to use your building and
not applying the zoning code fairly to us like they
would to any other developer who came in. And then
the religious rights, our ability to have a portion of
our building for our religious services, for our community and
(22:50):
religious activities.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
That is that is uh yeah, you could I had
that whole idea of being told what part of your
building you could pray in. That just that's that's bugging me. Wow, yes,
less please.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
It gets worse.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Oh my gosh. This is a familiar in city counts.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
The doctors, the good doctors being nice. Oh my gosh,
it gets the city staff has gone to the point
of dictating what uses can be on what floors, although
when you go through the building the floors are all identical.
But they've limited most of the uses to the first floor,
(23:33):
so they've gone through the extra step as the applicant
the nore has said of zoning by floor, which, by
the way, our community's never done, and a lot of
folks in the region are going, excuse me, never heard
of it, what are you talking about? Well, all of
a sudden, we're doing it. So not only did we
(23:54):
tell the applicant what the good doctor just shared, but
we've also said and limited what can be done on
each floor by floor, although they're the same. My argument
at the council meeting was that by itself is improper
and in my humble opinions, that's what the definition of
spot zoning is is the classification of like situations differently
(24:19):
in an area, like just like that. I mean, you
look at that and it what are we doing? So
it became clear to me, and I think it became
clear to these guys. You know, the city just wasn't
interested in that use for that building. They had something
else in.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
Mind, Chuck, let me build on that. Usually and a
developer comes in town wants to do something good. The
first question should be how many jobs will you bring
it in? You know, if you talk about pedrol taxes,
you would want to know how many jobs. There's so
many applicants that apply to developed Land and Hilliard and
(24:53):
you give them this application and say, if you want
tax abatement, here's the application, and one of the questions
is how many jobs will you do you think you
anticipate to create? And the applicant puts in a job
ten fifty. Magically, surprisingly, shockingly, we were never asked how
many jobs would you create? How many jobs would your
(25:14):
proposal bring?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Why?
Speaker 5 (25:17):
Why would you not even inquire to know what would
my proposal bring to you? Would you just simply magically
make it up on your own? Would you just pretend
to know? Would you just you make your own financial
assessment that this you is going to bring ten, this
you is going to bring in fifty? Why would you
not ask me?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Well, from a strategy standpoint, if I was the one
who was responsible for asking you that question, and I
needed something to stole you with down the road, I
would make sure you didn't have a form filled out.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Absolutely, I wo're not even asking for tax abayment we're
not asking for any grants, we're not asking for any incentives.
We're just saying we want to do the following. If
you really care about perrol taxes, and the city manager
does care about the payroll tax, that's a source of revenue, understood, rightfully. So,
But if you care so much, which ask the applicant
(26:07):
how many jobs are you bringing? How many jobs do
you expect to have in there? If you don't ask me,
that means what you don't care to know, or you
don't want to know, or you want to use this
you know for some other reasons. So right there, just
that basic, basic functional question that should come in from
any city manager to any applicant, it doesn't matter how
(26:29):
big or small they are. Tells you that there was
not really a good intention. There is no good faith
in actually knowing, and if there's no good faith in knowing,
there's no good faith in cooperating throughout the whole process.
We felt one thing specific. We felt downsized. You come in,
you meet with someone city manager, they should treat you
as a restaurantier as well as equal to a corporate company.
(26:53):
To Google, doesn't matter, you should be the same size,
same process, same respect. In this case, we felt downside,
you're too small. Essentially, we don't really have to ask
you these questions, but don't We don't really care. But
would you have done the same thing for a developer
that you know, that you like, that you want them
(27:14):
to do this with, you would not have done it,
because if you do it with someone else, that means
you're a bad businessman, you're in the wrong place. This
is a great job, but it has to be for
the right person. So you cannot not ask these questions
to people who are coming in town trying to do
good things. So these are just examples of how Not
(27:34):
So Open was a city, and it's actually in its
sense of you know, it tried to give the illusion
of cooperation to city council members. We have been working
with the applicant. We are been trying to kind of
make something happen. But you're not working with me if
you're not asking me the right questions. And then you
bring in those questions you know mile mark or twenty.
(27:57):
That does not make sense. And the will was brought
before a counsel and council turned down turned out to
be not even your proposal, which which again that there's
some manipulation at some level here that I'm just, as
I said, as I'm completely uncomfortable with. I know, we're
almost out of time. When is the next meeting?
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Less, we have another council meeting a week from today?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Okay, well wait a minute, better check that.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
I don't know, I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Or is on Tuesday night?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, they're on Monday nights.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Are they on Mondays?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Normally they're on Mondays? Yeah, twenty fifth, we have another meeting.
But you know this, this matter has been voted down.
There's only a couple avenues of redress for the mosque
and the newer community. It's so sad.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Well, they can make some lawyers wealthy and take it
to court, but I don't think anybody benefits from that.
It slows them down and ultimately it doesn't make kill
your look very good.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And we said that from day one, you know, we
were saying that, you know, all the way through the process,
is that the last thing that we want to do
is to sue the city because we love the city,
we're part of the city, we love the city. We
don't want to sue the city. And the entire time
throughout the entire process. We felt like we were making
compromise after compromise after compromise, and you know, accepting more
(29:12):
and more cuts to what we originally wanted to try
to get to something that the city manager and her
staff were willing to actually put in front of the
P and Z and put in front of the city council.
And we couldn't get there. We couldn't get there because again,
they didn't want this community center, and we felt from
the beginning that they were orchestrating the situation in a
way that would cause it to fail. That again give
(29:35):
the illusion that they were compromising and giving us some
of the things we were asking for, but then putting
so many limitations on it that there was no way
that we could actually make it successful. The best example is, Chuck,
you won't believe this one. They said, yeah, you can
have a restaurant in there, but you can't have any
delivery vehicles parked in the parking lot. You can't have
(29:56):
any fleet vehicles. So that means that we as the landowner,
as the landlord, now have to go and try to
find a restauranteur who's willing to rent that restaurant. But
you can't deliver food and you can't cater out of
that kitchen? How's that possible? And when we ask them, well,
why why don't you want us to have cars park there,
we're willing to even put a limit on the number
of cars. Keep in mind, when BMW Financial was there,
(30:19):
they had dozens and dozens of cars waiting BMW's waiting
to be leased that were parked there twenty four to
seven and the city never had a problem with that.
But now, all of a sudden, have a few fleet
vehicles there to support the restaurant for delivery and catering
on a parking lot that holds more than one one
hundred cars. It's not like it's going to be an
(30:40):
eyesor it's a ginormous parking lot, and the city's putting
that limitation on us. So what else could we think, chuck,
but that they're purposely trying to set us up for failure.
They're trying to look like they're compromising, but setting us
up for failure. That's how we felt throughout the entire process.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
And to add on to that, chob think about it,
if you went to the Hilliard Schools and asked them
to move their operations center to that BMW building. All
those buses down at Atlas Drive would have been parked there.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, that's true. Is there's the music. I'm done strategically,
less are you the odd man out on this? Are
your fellow council members?
Speaker 4 (31:21):
I tell you, strategically, what has to happen with our
leadership is we have to take out the arbitrary nature
of our comprehensive plan that was voted last fall. These
individuals come, they don't know what revenue has to be
brought for approval on a mixed use development. I don't know.
I have no idea. It's been the most in depth,
(31:44):
comprehensive argument that I've made that our comprehensive plan design
is flawed. It's flawed because decisions are made and the
staff hangs their hats on decisions about how much tax
revenue you're going to bring to the city. Shouldn't it
be made on what's right for the city. Guys.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm gonna bring you back to the studio in the
very very near future because I don't want to let
this go. This is not right. The way it's developing
is not right. The way it's serving Hilliard is not right.
Gotta go time for me to fly. We'll do the
skin tomorrow at six on six ' ten douautvn
Greeting salitations. Welcome my friends to another edition of the
Power Hour.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
I'm Chuck.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
Unless you allegedly know who you are. We take it
from there. We get one hour together, which means I
talk really, really fast, and you must listen even faster.
The number eight two one nine eight eighty six eight
two one WTVN or eight hundred six ' ten wtv IN.
If you've listened to any period of time you've been
around with me anytime, you know I'm a Central Ohio guy,
born and raised Columbus, Ohio, Westside West High Cowboy for.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
The rest of my life. Love of many of our suburbs,
dislike a couple of them, but Hilliard is right up
there at the top for me. I love Hilliard. I
love old downtown Hilliard. I love those summertime Thursday afternoons
when all those people gather in a peaceful way and
they enjoy the band and the food and the just
the camaraderie of living there and being a part of
(00:52):
this big, you know, city wide family in Hilliard. That's
what it feels like up there. And I've seen so
many things develop, so many positive things, so much momentum commercially, residentially,
it's it. It's inspiring, especially, you know, as we clawed
our way through COVID and all the ridiculousness is the
(01:12):
past decade or so. It's been an uphill battle. But
Hilliard has done very, very well, which is why when
I saw this story about a week and a half ago,
I I was distressed because I didn't understand. There is
a large commercial parcel up there, and one of the
voices you'll hear in the studio tonight is a commercial realtor,
(01:32):
so he'll be able to tell us all about that
BMW credit was there. Okay, big office building and it
sits empty, doing nothing. So this group comes to Hilliard
and says, hey, we like to do something involving a
community center, an education center, cultural center, and it is Yes,
(01:55):
there are religious implications to it, but my god, this
is America. What's the problem there except the fact that
maybe this building wouldn't generate as much tax money used
that way as it would if it was used for
another financial services industry or something like that. But it
seemed to me when I heard this story, this will
be a very positive and productive use for this growing,
(02:18):
vibrant community. So I thought, yay, they acquired it back,
and I believe it was March and brought the plan
to develop it and change it and turn it into
something instead of an empty hulk, and then it got
stolled in front of the city council and I could
not figure that out to save myself. Well, I'm kind
(02:41):
of starting to figure things out now as I've paid
a little bit more attention. I've got two ourpresentatives from
newer Islamic Cultural Center. Is that the official title, as
well as a member of the Hilliard City Council in
studio tonight, let's get to the bottom thing, gentlemen, would
you let's go left to right here if you'd introduce
yourself like they can see what direction you're sitting, but
(03:03):
introduce yourself to everybody who you are.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
So my name is doctor Ronnie of Baza and Chuck.
As we were talking earlier, I'm a urologist, but I
also happened to be the chairman of the board of
nor Islamic Cultural Center, and so this issue is very
near and dear to my heart, obviously, and thank you
so much for bringing this to your audience.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
Thank you. And in the middle of the room that
would be you looking at me.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
Yes, good evening. My name's Least Carrier. I've a longer
serving member on Hillard City Council and I'm here tonight
to talk about, you know, my concerns and some of
what I saw in the last couple of days and
as I reflect upon it so and also to answer
to your questions that I can. You know, I'm one
of seven and it was a very tough night last Monday,
(03:49):
and I think a lot of folks were surprised.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
Okay, my name is Faddi Suliman. I'm a member of
the nor Islamic Cultural Center, and also I has been
in practicing real estate at Columbus for the last twenty years.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
You guys all, First of all, I want to commend
you and tell you how much I appreciate you for
even coming here tonight, because I know this has been
a rough situation. But there was a scheduling issue where
I thought the hill your Counsel was meeting tomorrow night,
which they are not. It won't be until next week.
But Less was not going to be here until Wednesday
(04:25):
according to my calendar. However, he thought it was tonight,
so he came and I thought, oh my gosh, they're
not going to want to do this together. I commend
all three of you for saying, yeah, let's let's go
in and talk about this. Was great and I appreciate
you being that, you know, that kind of person, all
three of you for saying, yeah, let's come in and
talk about this, which the world could use more of
in every aspect, So thank you for that. Gentlemen. Let's
(04:49):
let's start from the real estate perspective. I'm assuming you
helped in the acquisition here of the building, and was
there any indication upfront that there was going to be
any kind of difficulty, any any major hurdles in redeveloping
and following through with this plan once the building was purchased.
Speaker 5 (05:04):
No. Keep in mind, this building was the headquarters for
BMW Financials for quite some time, almost eighteen years, and
the city of Hilliard knew that this building is going
to go vacant back in March twenty twenty one, so
they had heads up. They knew it was going to
go vacant, but the actual loan default took place in
(05:25):
about the end of last year twenty twenty three, and
the owners tried to lease the building, which is about
two hundred and twenty five thousand square feet, four stories tall,
and it's essentially one hundred percent vacant. They tried to
lease it for about a year and they couldn't get
any traction. Not one inch of space was leased, so
(05:47):
it was defaulted. We was on the auction. The auction
was for the note, and several bidders were on the auction,
and we, the nor Islamic Cultural Center, won the bid
for the or the note, and we went through the
process to actually take the deed from the prior owner.
So that process took us about four months and we
(06:08):
officially had the deed in hand in March of twenty
twenty Ford this year, and since then we've been working
with the city try to do the things that we
proposed to do, and it wasn't a very welcoming environment,
to be honest. From day one, we felt the resistance
and that the city was not really necessarily liking the
proposals that we put on the table. They had some
(06:30):
other things in mind that they were not necessarily transparent about.
But we start to realize what those things are along
the process and we can dig into that details. But
keep in mind the thing from a business side, as
we talk about the process and on the business side,
the real estate market when it comes to office space
has been just essentially destroyed. We all know how bad
(06:51):
the office market is. We all know there's about millions
of square feet of space setting empty, not just in
Hilliard in Dublin, but throughout central Ohio and within fifteen
mile radius from that building alone, there's about six million
square feet of space that's sitting empty. So to sit
there and I guess hope that this building will get
occupied by an office user, that's just wishful thinking. And
(07:15):
we want to be more proactive to actually do something
intentional and that will bring something different to the environment,
especially to that corridor that's been sitting. Truthfully, there's not
a whole lot of activity in that corridor. If you
drive by, that corridor is fairly quiet. So we wanted
to do something different that will bring in some vibrancy
to the market, bringing vibrancy to that corridor and through that.
(07:39):
That's where our proposal came in, with the intention to
repurpose the whole building into various uses, including a daycare,
a stem business incubator that will occupy about twenty thousand
square feet of office space. We have an event center
that will occupy about fifteen thousand square feet of space.
We also have a co working space that will take
(08:00):
about ten thousand square feet at a minimum, a restaurant, use,
a coffee shop, use office space, medical office including different
specialty specialties, and also utilizing the existing restaurant commercial kitchen
in that building, which is a class A commercial kitchen
that's been sitting empty also since last year. So we
(08:22):
proposed those things to City of Hilliard. Including those uses
was a small use for a not for profit purpose.
So the intention overall was to commercialize ninety percent of
the building into businesses and retain about ten percent for
not for profit purposes.
Speaker 1 (08:40):
And that was the stumbling block. The not for profit
ten percent is that where they seem to put up
a wall.
Speaker 5 (08:46):
The stumbling blocks were many, if you ask me truthfully,
there was never really an honest, honest feedback from the
city on what is bothering them? What do you not
like to see? It's been almost one hundred percent. We
will let us hear what you got and we'll get
(09:07):
back with you. We proposed the proposals that we just
mentioned earlier, and the feedback has been well can you
do this without having a school. We have a user
who wants to do forty thousand square feet fifty thousand
square feet of school. Can you do it without the school?
And we said no, we have to have a school.
It's a private school and they're going to be leasing
space just like anybody else. So that didn't go very well.
(09:30):
But you know, for me to be honest as an
outsider looking in, when you just unplug yourself and plug
yourself back in, you look back and say, was this
a hospitable environment from day one? And I can tell
you it wasn't.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
And wouldn't you say the city? I want to differentiate
here city staff that you deal with with the zoning
or how is there a difference in how you feel
like you're being treated when dealing with city council versus
the city staff.
Speaker 5 (09:55):
Well as far as city staff, most of our dealing
have been with city staff, including the city manager and
Economic Development director and some other city staff members. But
from day one, if you're a developer walking into a
city looking to bring in jobs and bring in development
and repurpose something that's been sitting empty for a long time,
(10:16):
I would think the message would be thank you for
coming to my city. We are happy to have you here.
How can we help you make this better? How can
we develop something together that will make the city more
welcoming and this project more profitable. To the contrary, the
feedback we got from first day was we are willing
to wait on another five years until the office market
(10:39):
comes back. That's not a statement you dish out because
you want to be cooperative. That's not a statement you
dish out to any developer who's coming to the city
to bring in jobs. You should be a de Chanella's statement,
Thank you, We're happy to have you. We know this
building has been sitting empty for a long time. Let's
do something with it together. When you throw out these
(11:00):
statements that really just kind of like block the conversation
from moving forward. That just gives you a tone of
how the next steps are going to go. And consequently
they did not go very well from that point.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Well, yeah, obviously there have been a couple of stumbling blocks,
less carriers, he said. The longest serving member of Hilliard
City Council correct does does what you are hearing right there?
Does that sound like an accurate depiction of what you
have witnessed as you watch this thing developed.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah. I think.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Jack said, can you hit the microphone a little bit
more directly here so.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
We can hear it. That's okay, I'm a rookie at
this radio. Anyway, we have proses. I think that is
a very accurate understan my understanding of what's happened. And
I think that comes from a perspective of where as
soon as the Nore reached out to me, I was
open arms and saying, yeah, let's talk about it now.
(11:54):
I understand that's been on an overlay of a lot
of political issues that's happening internationally. We've got the Gaza situation,
which is horrible for everybody, right, and then you have
this group that comes forward, it's a large part of
our community, has been established in our community for a
long time and says, hey, we want to redevelop an
empty building and we want to commercialize it and bring
(12:15):
mixed uses to it in a way that you're probably
not used to staying in terms of mixed use. So
I sat down and I gotcha. It had to have
been I met you what in March March I have
It's been a long time, and it just to understand
what their vision was now, I also, as a council member,
have prior knowledge of others that have been interested in
(12:36):
that building or that the city has tried to move
into that building. And that's where I started to get
really concerned about what was going on here, because in
between the emptying of the BMW folks out of that
building and meeting with the NORE, I knew that we
(12:57):
were trying to get the schools, the publics schools, to
move their operations center out of Columbus back into Hilliard,
into Hillard city limits, and they have a pretty big
operation down.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
On Atlas Drive.
Speaker 4 (13:10):
I also had some understanding that they were trying to
bring in an educational space within that move. So I'm
sitting here looking at it, going wait a minute now.
The city manager denied that on the record at the
last council meeting that there was any educational space being
considered with the move for the operational jobs with Atlas Drive,
(13:34):
and that doctor Marshause when she talked to doctor doctor Marshause,
she also, I had to I had to check the record,
but if I remember served me right. She also indicated
she did not talk to doctor Dave Stewart about who's
the current superintendent of your schools. I'm not sure that's correct,
and I'll find we'll find that out as we go
through this process. But in any event, I get this
(13:56):
picture of, Hey, we were going to have a school
or school operations come in to the building two years
ago as it was vacating, and now these folks want
to come and they want to bring enterprise and you know,
an education and experience to our community and bring quite frankly,
something a new model, right, it's a new model for
kids to learn. I took the time to learn a
(14:17):
little bit about those programs, and I thought, this is cool,
this is new, this is cutting edge stuff. They only
have this in Dallas. I think it's Dallas, right, yep.
And so I literally had to call other council members
who were told by the city manager not to meet
with the newer community, and say, hey, come listen to
these guys. This is pretty cool stuff. So I became
(14:38):
pretty disenheartened about the process that was coming forward. My
guess is is the city My understanding is is the
city had different bidders that were lined up for the facility,
and the NORE won the bidding process, and that wasn't
their expectation, but I don't know if you'll ever you
know that that's going to come out sooner or later.
So you know, from my seat in the policy level
(15:02):
making seat as a council member, you want number one,
you want it to be a vibrant community. You want
it to be a vibrant piece of property. The question becomes,
and this is really what bothered me, is well, what's
the standard we're going to operate under? And I don't
think that's where it breaks down for me. And that
goes back to the Comprehensive Plan that the city passed
(15:25):
the last fall, and we had a pretty contentious debate
about that and what to certain areas of the city
going to look like. And you can see through the
comp plan there's a lot of urbanization. And what I
mean by that is we're going to go vertical with
residential and mixed use properties. So they want to go
vertical and mix up the uses with apartments and you
(15:45):
see all that stuff where you've got retail on the
bottom floor, apartments up top. There's a lot of I'm
going to tell you right now, there's going to be
another train wreck in Hillard when they do to do that.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
In Old Hilliard.
Speaker 4 (15:55):
Old Hillard is a neat little area that, yes it is,
and so you're going to have these these discussions. And
that's what I see here. I see what the really
boils down to is what a difference in opinion as
to what true mixed use is really going to be.
And they're bringing a lot of different some nonprofit mixed uses,
some profitable mixed uses, some creativity, some innovation. You're bringing
(16:18):
all these things in this cauldron, and who knows what
spins out of that, but my guess it's going to
be pretty cool, right.
Speaker 1 (16:25):
You know, a couple of minutes on television does not
do the story justice. I am talking about the development,
and I don't know what you call it a controversy,
because it is kind of controversial. Out of the Hillyard area.
The BMW Financial building sitting abandoned, doing nothing, just basically
being being a hulk, and somebody comes along buys it
(16:47):
back in March and says, we've got plans, we'd like
to do this. We have this idea and it sounds great,
but it's stalled out almost immediately, it seems, because they
just purchased the building back in March. And the reason
it's stalled. Is kind of be me. Now we've heard
(17:08):
from from Fatty, We've heard from our council member, from
from Hilliard. I've also got doctor of baza here in
the studio who is from the nor Islamic Community Center. I imagine,
as you know, kind of you're not in the business
end of this. This is more of the as a
concern part of this organization. You've got to be standing
(17:32):
off in the background, really suspicious of everything that's happened
at this point. I don't know how else I would
take it. I'm a reasonable person. I don't see I
don't see you know, racism or discrimination around every corner.
But from your perspective on, you know, you've got to
be wondering what I have to assume. At least maybe
(17:52):
I'm wrong about that, but it seems like this would
be a very perplexing situation for you.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Well, Chuck, let me tell you why your listener should
be concerned about this. There's really two different reasons, and
really particularly your listeners you know more than anyone else.
There's the issue of property rights and government overreach, which
I know your listeners are not happy about. And there's
the issue of religious rights, something we have in this
(18:19):
country called the First Amendment. These two issues really are
at the crux of this situation, in this conflict, and
I'll tell you why. As Fadi said earlier, when we
first had our meeting, the very first meeting between us
and the city manager and her team, and we're hearing
we're willing to wait five years until the office market
(18:40):
comes back. Essentially, that's the Hilliard City government telling us
that you bought this building, you own this building outright,
but we wanted to sit there empty, and you're going
to have to keep paying the bills for five years
until somebody comes and rents it like BMW Financial. Does
that get under your skin?
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Absolutely, it's yours. You should be able to use it
within the boundaries the law any way that you choose
to use it. And if the law is this restrictive,
then perhaps.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
That needs to be looked at so exactly, and that's
what we've said from day one, is that, look, there
are zoning laws in the City of Hilliard. There's a
comprehensive plan, and we are making a proposal that fits
it completely. We're not asking for something outside of the law,
anything that is prohibited by the comprehensive plan prohibited by
(19:31):
the PUD. We're not asking for anything that is really
outside of the pill We're basically asking for the ability
to redevelop this empty building and commercialize ninety percent of it.
Bring in. Ninety percent is going to be businesses, businesses
that rent from us. The school is going to rent
(19:52):
space from us, the daycare is going to rent space
from us, the restaurant, the coffee shop, all the medical
offices and yes, the premium office, even the Discover stem
is going to rent space from us. We're going to
pay property tax on all of that space. And we
just asked for about ten percent of the space. It
was actually nine percent, nine percent of the building that
(20:13):
we could use for our nonprofit to be a community
center for us to gather for religious activities, prayer services,
interfaith activities, dinners, parties, whatever it may be. And that
ended up being, to our surprise, the biggest issue of
contention with the city manager her staff. They did not
(20:34):
want us to have this community center. And this is
the religious rights side of this issue and why your
listeners should be unhappy about this and how it played
out Chuck on the night of the city council meeting,
the city staff really pulled the wool over the eyes
(20:54):
of the city council. And I'll tell you how in
this building we asked for permission to have an event center,
an event center, which we explained to the city manager
and her staff that this is like the McCoy Center. Basically,
we have an operator who wants to come and rent
fifteen thousand square feet of our building and then use
that space for graduation parties, bar mitzvah's weddings, et cetera,
(21:19):
et cetera, all the types of things that would happen
at McCoy Center any other event hall. So that event center,
again is going to be least to somebody who's going
to pay us rent and then have parties there that
they do, you know, that they know make money off of.
So the city staff says at the city council meeting that, well,
(21:44):
they can pray in the event hall. Chuck, you have
no idea how you can pray in the event You
have no idea. How offensive that was? They might as
they do. They might as well have said to us,
well they can pray in the daycare. So we're asking
for nine percent of this building, twenty thousand square feet
(22:06):
that we can use for our community center. And it's
not just for prayers.
Speaker 5 (22:09):
You know.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Obviously our main center, which is less than a mile
away on Wilcox, is being used all day, every day
for all sorts of activities. So this community center that
we ask for nine percent of the building, they're denying us, rejecting,
and they're telling us, well, you can always pray in
the event hall. So you know, again, there's two big
(22:30):
issues here that your listeners should be concerned about, property rights,
government overreach telling you how to use your building and
not applying the zoning code fairly to us like they
would to any other developer who came in. And then
the religious rights, our ability to have a portion of
our building for our religious services, for our community and
(22:50):
religious activities.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
That is that is uh yeah, you could I had
that whole idea of being told what part of your
building you could pray in. That just that's that's bugging me. Wow, yes,
less please.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
It gets worse.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
Oh my gosh. This is a familiar in city counts.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
The doctors, the good doctors being nice. Oh my gosh,
it gets the city staff has gone to the point
of dictating what uses can be on what floors, although
when you go through the building the floors are all identical.
But they've limited most of the uses to the first floor,
(23:33):
so they've gone through the extra step as the applicant
the nore has said of zoning by floor, which, by
the way, our community's never done, and a lot of
folks in the region are going, excuse me, never heard
of it, what are you talking about? Well, all of
a sudden, we're doing it. So not only did we
(23:54):
tell the applicant what the good doctor just shared, but
we've also said and limited what can be done on
each floor by floor, although they're the same. My argument
at the council meeting was that by itself is improper
and in my humble opinions, that's what the definition of
spot zoning is is the classification of like situations differently
(24:19):
in an area, like just like that. I mean, you
look at that and it what are we doing? So
it became clear to me, and I think it became
clear to these guys. You know, the city just wasn't
interested in that use for that building. They had something
else in.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
Mind, Chuck, let me build on that. Usually and a
developer comes in town wants to do something good. The
first question should be how many jobs will you bring
it in? You know, if you talk about pedrol taxes,
you would want to know how many jobs. There's so
many applicants that apply to developed Land and Hilliard and
(24:53):
you give them this application and say, if you want
tax abatement, here's the application, and one of the questions
is how many jobs will you do you think you
anticipate to create? And the applicant puts in a job
ten fifty. Magically, surprisingly, shockingly, we were never asked how
many jobs would you create? How many jobs would your
(25:14):
proposal bring?
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Why?
Speaker 5 (25:17):
Why would you not even inquire to know what would
my proposal bring to you? Would you just simply magically
make it up on your own? Would you just pretend
to know? Would you just you make your own financial
assessment that this you is going to bring ten, this
you is going to bring in fifty? Why would you
not ask me?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Well, from a strategy standpoint, if I was the one
who was responsible for asking you that question, and I
needed something to stole you with down the road, I
would make sure you didn't have a form filled out.
Speaker 5 (25:46):
Absolutely, I wo're not even asking for tax abayment we're
not asking for any grants, we're not asking for any incentives.
We're just saying we want to do the following. If
you really care about perrol taxes, and the city manager
does care about the payroll tax, that's a source of revenue, understood, rightfully. So,
But if you care so much, which ask the applicant
(26:07):
how many jobs are you bringing? How many jobs do
you expect to have in there? If you don't ask me,
that means what you don't care to know, or you
don't want to know, or you want to use this
you know for some other reasons. So right there, just
that basic, basic functional question that should come in from
any city manager to any applicant, it doesn't matter how
(26:29):
big or small they are. Tells you that there was
not really a good intention. There is no good faith
in actually knowing, and if there's no good faith in knowing,
there's no good faith in cooperating throughout the whole process.
We felt one thing specific. We felt downsized. You come in,
you meet with someone city manager, they should treat you
as a restaurantier as well as equal to a corporate company.
(26:53):
To Google, doesn't matter, you should be the same size,
same process, same respect. In this case, we felt downside,
you're too small. Essentially, we don't really have to ask
you these questions, but don't We don't really care. But
would you have done the same thing for a developer
that you know, that you like, that you want them
(27:14):
to do this with, you would not have done it,
because if you do it with someone else, that means
you're a bad businessman, you're in the wrong place. This
is a great job, but it has to be for
the right person. So you cannot not ask these questions
to people who are coming in town trying to do
good things. So these are just examples of how Not
(27:34):
So Open was a city, and it's actually in its
sense of you know, it tried to give the illusion
of cooperation to city council members. We have been working
with the applicant. We are been trying to kind of
make something happen. But you're not working with me if
you're not asking me the right questions. And then you
bring in those questions you know mile mark or twenty.
(27:57):
That does not make sense. And the will was brought
before a counsel and council turned down turned out to
be not even your proposal, which which again that there's
some manipulation at some level here that I'm just, as
I said, as I'm completely uncomfortable with. I know, we're
almost out of time. When is the next meeting?
Speaker 4 (28:14):
Less, we have another council meeting a week from today?
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Okay, well wait a minute, better check that.
Speaker 4 (28:20):
I don't know, I'm not quite sure.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
Or is on Tuesday night?
Speaker 4 (28:23):
Yeah, they're on Monday nights.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
Are they on Mondays?
Speaker 4 (28:25):
Normally they're on Mondays? Yeah, twenty fifth, we have another meeting.
But you know this, this matter has been voted down.
There's only a couple avenues of redress for the mosque
and the newer community. It's so sad.
Speaker 1 (28:43):
Well, they can make some lawyers wealthy and take it
to court, but I don't think anybody benefits from that.
It slows them down and ultimately it doesn't make kill
your look very good.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
And we said that from day one, you know, we
were saying that, you know, all the way through the process,
is that the last thing that we want to do
is to sue the city because we love the city,
we're part of the city, we love the city. We
don't want to sue the city. And the entire time
throughout the entire process. We felt like we were making
compromise after compromise after compromise, and you know, accepting more
(29:12):
and more cuts to what we originally wanted to try
to get to something that the city manager and her
staff were willing to actually put in front of the
P and Z and put in front of the city council.
And we couldn't get there. We couldn't get there because again,
they didn't want this community center, and we felt from
the beginning that they were orchestrating the situation in a
way that would cause it to fail. That again give
(29:35):
the illusion that they were compromising and giving us some
of the things we were asking for, but then putting
so many limitations on it that there was no way
that we could actually make it successful. The best example is, Chuck,
you won't believe this one. They said, yeah, you can
have a restaurant in there, but you can't have any
delivery vehicles parked in the parking lot. You can't have
(29:56):
any fleet vehicles. So that means that we as the landowner,
as the landlord, now have to go and try to
find a restauranteur who's willing to rent that restaurant. But
you can't deliver food and you can't cater out of
that kitchen? How's that possible? And when we ask them, well,
why why don't you want us to have cars park there,
we're willing to even put a limit on the number
of cars. Keep in mind, when BMW Financial was there,
(30:19):
they had dozens and dozens of cars waiting BMW's waiting
to be leased that were parked there twenty four to
seven and the city never had a problem with that.
But now, all of a sudden, have a few fleet
vehicles there to support the restaurant for delivery and catering
on a parking lot that holds more than one one
hundred cars. It's not like it's going to be an
(30:40):
eyesor it's a ginormous parking lot, and the city's putting
that limitation on us. So what else could we think, chuck,
but that they're purposely trying to set us up for failure.
They're trying to look like they're compromising, but setting us
up for failure. That's how we felt throughout the entire process.
Speaker 4 (30:57):
And to add on to that, chob think about it,
if you went to the Hilliard Schools and asked them
to move their operations center to that BMW building. All
those buses down at Atlas Drive would have been parked there.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Yeah, that's true. Is there's the music. I'm done strategically,
less are you the odd man out on this? Are
your fellow council members?
Speaker 4 (31:21):
I tell you, strategically, what has to happen with our
leadership is we have to take out the arbitrary nature
of our comprehensive plan that was voted last fall. These
individuals come, they don't know what revenue has to be
brought for approval on a mixed use development. I don't know.
I have no idea. It's been the most in depth,
(31:44):
comprehensive argument that I've made that our comprehensive plan design
is flawed. It's flawed because decisions are made and the
staff hangs their hats on decisions about how much tax
revenue you're going to bring to the city. Shouldn't it
be made on what's right for the city. Guys.
Speaker 1 (32:01):
I'm gonna bring you back to the studio in the
very very near future because I don't want to let
this go. This is not right. The way it's developing
is not right. The way it's serving Hilliard is not right.
Gotta go time for me to fly. We'll do the
skin tomorrow at six on six ' ten douautvn
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