The former Post-Bulletin building is on the chopping block.

The building’s new owner, PB Rochester Investments, LLC, has filed a request to the city for an early demolition permit. Doing so would allow the owner to reserve the right to create a Redevelopment Tax Increment Financing District at the site within the next three years.

The P-B sold the 1.86-acre property at 18 First Avenue Southeast last September for $10.5 million as part of its transition to a new ownership group. The paper’s staff has since relocated to a space in southwest.

It is unclear who purchased the site or what they plan to do with it. In a memo included in the council packet, an architecture firm representing the owner only went so far to say: “While firm plans have not been completed, the property is intended to be cleared for redevelopment in the future.”

In authorizing the demolition, the city would not be obligated to proceed with any particular project or TIF request the owner puts forward. All future plans would require additional council action.

Park-and-ride lease, cont.

Also on Monday night, the council will be asked to formalize an edit that has been made to the city’s agreement with the Kmart site developer.

If you recall, the council recently signed off an agreement with the developer, Camegaran, and Mayo Clinic for a five-year lease that calls for the site to be converted into a park-and-ride facility. As part of that lease, Camegaran maintained two 30-month options for renewal.

However, facing a potential mayoral veto, the company reached out directly to Mayor Kim Norton and agreed to waive the second 30-month option — limiting the lease agreement to a maximum of seven and a half years.

According to the city, that action did not change the terms of the lease — meaning the lease itself is not exactly coming back to council. Instead, the action before the council will be for “record keeping purposes” only.

That said, the deal struck by the mayor has been met with criticism from the city’s other top elected leader — so it may be worth keeping an eye on. This week, Council President Randy Staver called the mayor’s involvement “a misstep” — adding that “we have to respect our respective boundaries.”

City loop bid

The council will also review bids for the first phase of the City Loop project.

City staff is recommending the council approve a $1.3 million bid from Pember Companies. That bid was not only the lowest of the three submitted to the city, but also below the city engineers’ estimate of $1.4 million. (All of this after the first round of bids on the project came in over budget.)

Map showing Phase I of the City Loop project

Plans for phase one show the city putting in one-way protected bike lanes along Third and Fourth Avenues (from Soldiers Field Veterans Memorial Park/7th Street Southwest to Sixth Street Northwest), as well as bike lanes along Center Street from Mayo Park Drive to Fourth Avenue Southwest.

The project is being paid for using state DMC funds.

Sean Baker is a Rochester journalist and the founder of Med City Beat.