BonnerSprings.com

Several years have gone by and still not a spade of dirt has been turned on the Raintree Apartment complex in Edwardsville.

The 510-unit, $50 million apartment complex at 1300 S. 94th St., is still on hold, but not dead, according to city officials and the project’s developer.

“Unfortunately, it’s not really a good report,” said Larry Waldrop, one of the managing members of Raintree 1, LLC, the company developing the project. “We all know the financial market in the whole country is still tight, and we don’t know when it’s going to turn around.”

Waldrop said banks are nervous right now about taking too many financial risks, which is making financing of the project almost impossible.

“The financial market is frozen,” he said. “There is going to be no economic turnaround until the financial markets start loaning money again.”

Waldrop said, however, the project was still on the minds of him and fellow managing member of Raintree 1 Ron Volkman. Waldrop said the partners still owned the land and still planned to move forward.

“We’re just sick about it because we know all the jobs going to be created around the (Kansas) Speedway,” Waldrop said referring to the need of multifamily housing for potential workers moving to the Wyandotte County area. “We just absolutely know there will be a need for quality, multi-family units like the ones we would provide. The demand will be strong. I wish there was more positive information, but it’s a sign of the times.”

Edwardsville City Administrator Michael Webb said the last contact he had with Raintree 1, LLC was in the last 30 days, leading him to believe there is in fact positive hope for the project.

He said, as of now, the city is not out any money from the project besides staff time. While several items had been done early on to prepare for construction of the buildings, Webb said all those costs had been paid in full by the developer.

According to Chieftain archives, in 2008, the city awarded a $151,020 contract to Miles Excavating of Basehor to do the grading for a detention basin near the apartment site.

In addition to the excavation, the city also had a $12,082 contract to Cook, Flatt and Strobel Engineers for construction and inspection services associated with the detention basin and a $119,742 contract, also with Cook, Flatt and Strobel, for engineering services for a new Frontage Road between Swartz Road and Kansas Avenue.

Webb said the fact that nothing has come of the project as of yet has taught the city a valuable lesson when it comes to development agreements.

“One thing we learned out of this process is that there needs to be some sort of termination date on these types of agreements,” Webb said.

Webb said, however, that he didn’t think the fundamental agreement was a bad agreement. He said the Raintree Apartment complex was a unique situation in which a developer was offering beyond what the city could ever expect from most developers.

Also found in the Chieftain archives, as part of its agreement with the city, Raintree 1, LLC agreed to build several infrastructure improvements in the area, worth about $5 million.

In addition to the detention basin, which will be constructed on a tributary of Bett’s Creek and will collect runoff from the apartments in addition to that from upstream, the improvements include:

• Sanitary sewers to serve the apartment complex and to connect with the existing Edwardsville sewer network

• Improvements to 94th Street from Kansas Avenue to Swartz Road

• Improvements to 94th Street from Kansas Highway 32 to Metropolitan

These improvements, Webb said, would offset the fact that the city agreed to a 10-year 100 percent property tax abatement for the project. That abatement will not begin, however, until the project is complete.

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