Four Atlanta-based firms have submitted proposals to redevelop 4 acres of downtown Gainesville.
Batson-Cook Development Co., Forestar Real Estate Group, GKJ Development LLC and Rosser International turned in their ideas to transform the piece of land, which includes the Georgia Mountains Center and the two parking lots at Main and Maple streets that face Jesse Jewell Parkway.
City officials are in the process of creating a committee that will review the bids and score them based on their qualifications.
“I’m distributing the applications to the review committee, which is scheduled to meet next week,” said Angela Sheppard, Gainesville’s assistant city manager and project manager for the bid. “Each member will mark up their concerns or thoughts, and the committee will discuss the merits of each proposal and how it meets the RFP (request for proposals) we issued.”
The committee will select the firms to interview in mid-June and then submit a recommendation to the Gainesville City Council. City staff will not release any other information about the firms until the committee presents its recommendation.
“Depending on how competitive the bids are, we’ll go to the council with a recommendation of one or two,” Sheppard said. “They will make the final determination.”
Gainesville issued a request for proposals in January, and more than 30 people showed up for the mandatory March 9 pre-proposal meeting for the bid. The city’s purchasing department accepted applications until 2 p.m. Monday.
Though city staff have said there are no rules for the bid, the idea is to create a multiuse environment to bring more residents downtown.
In particular, city officials hope the project finds a way to reinvent the Georgia Mountains Center, which was opened in 1980 and renovated in 2005 to serve as a convention center to draw people from areas outside of Gainesville.
“The Georgia Mountains Center has faced problems. Increased competition from both public and private meeting facilities has contributed to a decrease in the Georgia Mountains Center’s market share of meetings,” the request for proposals states. “Declining revenues have hindered the facility from being self-supporting.”
City staff and council members have put an emphasis on downtown shopping this year, creating Main Street Gainesville to form connections among businesses and promote events such as Blue Sky concerts, the Mule Camp festival and the Historic Downtown Gainesville Market on the Square.
In 2009, Mayor Ruth Bruner also discussed a goal of bringing loft apartments to the downtown area. In December, she still supported the concept but said it’ll take longer to accomplish in the still-struggling economy.
“We’re excited about the proposals and extremely interested in what other people may envision for that area,” Sheppard said Monday. “We’ll get a better sense of that as we go through the next steps in the process.”