The Noblesville Common Council on Tuesday evening approved the city’s portion of funding for The Levinson project with a 7-1 vote by council members.
At the meeting, several members of the community spoke regarding the project, including Julia Church Kozicki, candidate for mayor.
Kozicki said she thought the project was good for Noblesville, but urged the council not to rush to approve the project: “I think it is critical we get it right and that we not rush to approve things until all of the questions are answered.”
Councilman Rick Taylor, who represents a portion of downtown Noblesville, said, “We can get this right. The rendering, I look at that as a starting point. We can get the design the people want, the design the city wants and the design the council wants. It’s going to take time, I’m willing to work on that.” Taylor continued by stating, “We’ve got a vibrant downtown, but we got to have parking or we are going to lose it. That is just the bottom line. When two parking studies, one in 2009, one in 2015, tell you we need a parking garage. I think the time is now.”
Councilwoman Mary Sue Rowland, who also represents downtown Noblesville said, I think this was a good conversation tonight. My concern is, can we continue the conversation? For 19 years I have been in some capacity elected for this city. The downtown is kind of my baby and I take that responsibility. I am the senior member of the council. My family has had a downtown business for 47 years. We [the city] should have been doing more. It takes a lot of faith to go through this process. I think everyone in the room wants the best for downtown. Everybody else is trying hard. Fishers is a mess, Carmel has some good points, but too many roundabouts. In my opinion, we have the real deal here.”
Rowland also directed comments to Project Developer Shelby Bowen. “I’m going to be really brave and put you on the spot Mr. Bowen, can you just give us two more weeks and we will put it back on our agenda for the next meeting? Let us hear from a historic architect and then we will know a little bit more about where we are going.”
Bowen replied to Rowland request by saying, “I don’t think it is going to change the dynamics of the project. It is becoming increasingly more difficult for us to make changes without an agreement from the city.”
Now that Noblesville has approved funding, the agreement will form a public-private partnership with Rebar Development.
According to the City of Noblesville, the project now moves to the design review panel while the city’s planning process gets underway.