Council paves way for Mission Gateway developers to offer new apartment, incentive plan
It’s a new year with new plans for the perpetually delayed Mission Gateway project, but it will continue to be led by the same developer despite some city officials’ reluctance after 16 years of fits and starts.
The Mission City Council voted this week to greenlight a new agreement that will give developer Tom Valenti another shot at transforming the site of the former Mission Center Mall into a residential and entertainment district after his team’s previous deal with the city expired at the end of last year.
The so-called predevelopment agreement sets the terms for Valenti and The Cameron Group, based in New York, to negotiate new zoning and development plans and make a new request for additional tax incentives over the next six months.
But it also gives city leaders frustrated by the years-long saga the opportunity to end those negotiations should the developers fall behind on taxes or fail to meet municipal codes, in addition to requiring Valenti to pay up to $10,000 toward the staff time needed to review the new plans.
“Any developer who comes to the city, we have to hear them out and go through the process and this predevelopment agreement protects the city,” Mayor Sollie Flora said.
Valenti’s group has led the project since the mall was torn down in 2006 but it has never come to fruition — the shell of a large entertainment center and exposed concrete and rebar sprigs the only pieces to rise from the dirt at the site near Johnson Drive and Roe Avenue before the COVID-19 pandemic ground construction to a halt.
The project has been dogged by logistical and financial issues since and its agreement to develop the property lapsed at the end of 2021, effectively sending it back to “square one” and in need of an entirely new agreement with the city.
The new $268 million plan pitched to council members this month now includes 372 apartments, more than double the number of residential units in previous proposals, and smaller versions of the retail spaces and food hall that had been envisioned for the center.
It also includes a 202-room hotel, a 100,000-square-foot office or medical facility and a promise that 75 of the new apartments would be rented at below-market rates.
The developers also plan to ask the city to divert 2% of sales tax generated on the property to the developer, up from 1% in the previous proposal, in addition to the property, hotel and sales tax incentives previously offered for the project.
The predevelopment agreement approved unanimously by the council Wednesday night does not obligate either the City Council or Planning Commission to approve the new plans for the project, it simply sets the table for those negotiations to take place, City Manager Laura said.
“This predevelopment agreement is actually an agreement that protects the city ... We can’t just shut the door and say, ‘We’re not going to talk to you any longer,’ “ she said.
Flora and Councilwoman Hillary Parker Thomas both reiterated that the new round of negotiations puts the city in an “unenviable position,” but both stressed the entire new plan will undergo many more public reviews before Valenti would be able to restart the project. Those reviews will begin with planning staff first and likely proceed to public hearings later this spring.
Valenti has said the project has secured financing again and, should it win all of the new approvals necessary to proceed, that construction could resume as soon as early next year. He told council members earlier this month he has invested “a great deal” of his life savings into the project and would like the chance to get at least some it back and follow through on the promises he has made over the years to finish the development.
“The highest priority for me is the fact that I’ve promised people on this city council, prior members of the city council and people who have become my good friends over the past 15 years that we were going to see this project to its completion in a way we can all be proud of,” he said. “We intend to do that.”
