El Paso City representatives question Lincoln Center business plan

While some city representatives question the viability of the business plan submitted by the group trying to reopen the Lincoln Center, others have said the plan is not final.

“What I’ve seen, I’m not impressed. I think it’s a little vague,” said City Rep. Ann Morgan Lilly in an interview Tuesday. Lilly is concerned the plan creates a $50,000 a year manager position for Lincoln Center Conservation Committee leader Miguel Juarez and that it does not list specific tenants for the center, if it reopened. She also believes the Committee underestimates the cost to renovate and reopen the Center.

“I saw his salary would be $50,000 a year and I was very surprised. No, is the way I feel,” said Lilly who added she’s disturbed the conservation committee included a high-paying position for one of its members. She said that if the committee truly wanted to ensure the success of the center, they’d conduct a search for someone with experience on implementing business plans or operating a non-profit from the ground up.

When asked for an interview on Tuesday, Juarez, on the phone said he would not do an interview without his lawyer present because his character had come under question. When ABC-7 told him that’d be fine, Juarez said he’d speak to his lawyer but never called back for the interview.

City Rep. Lily Limon, a supporter of reopening the Center said there’s “a lot of misconceptions” about the details of reopening the building. “The business plan is in a draft format. It’s not in a final and complete format,” Limon said. She said the conservation committee “rushed” to get the plan to Council after the Texas Department of Transportation in October gave supporters of the Center a year to come up with plans to reopen the building. She said the City has to determine the logistics of who will run the Center – the City’s parks and recreation department, Museums and Cultural Affairs Department – or if the City will turn it over to an outside organization, like the conservation committee.

“If the City runs it, I’m sure there’s going to be a job description and you can never simply select someone. You need to go through an interview process. If Miguel Juarez applies and he’s a top candidate, then so be it. But it has to be an open process. You can’t just arbitrarily as a city make a selection of someone to fill the position,” Limon said.

Limon said the Conservation Committee has also struggled to better identify tenants and include them in the business plan because the future of the building has been up in the air. “It all goes back to the premise of no communication. If TxDot and the preservation committee had an open dialogue, then we could have made a fair assessment. Everyone is working on different templates of the needs of the Lincoln Center.” Limon and the committee have said TxDot has refused to meet with center supporters.

Lilly said at least one of the two tenants the Conservation Committee does identify in the business plan are also not secured “They have the Y (YMCA) listed as one of the sponsors and about three weeks ago I got a letter from the Y saying they’re no longer involved,” she said. Lilly said the conservation committee, who has said there are other unnamed parties interested, have a responsibility to disclose potential tenants. “We need to know who they are so we can feel comfortable that they really are going to lease the space.”

There’s also a big difference in the City’s and the Conservation Committee’s estimates to reopen the building. A 2011 City Study concluded it’d cost between $2.6 million and $3.6 million to reopen the center, while the committee estimates it’d cost about $600,000. The discrepancy mostly stems from different evaluations of the extent of mold inside the building.

City officials have said the August 2006 heavy rain affected the building. According to the city study, a microbial investigation was conducted by Sun City Analytical Inc which revealed air contamination with mold permeating through the entire building and center staff members reported respiratory ailments due to contaminates. Dr. Jorge Magana who at the time was the Director of the City-County Health District, requested the center be closed and all personnel evacuate.

Limon questions the City study. She said they’ve since found out the Center was never flooded and the mold estimates are exaggerated. “It makes you question the legitimacy of the report.”

The Conservation Committee inspected the building with two environmental engineers and a commercial building contractor, according to the business plan. The plan states the building “can achieve a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) with a thorough cleanup, mold remediation, elevator repairs (if needed) and minimal changes, one of which is re-installation of the HVAC system which was removed by the City of El Paso.”

Lilly said the HVAC was removed because it was causing the poor circulation that intensified the mold. She said the estimates by the committee are not properly documented and she would not support using any city funds to restore the building. “I would never vote for the city to come up with any funding and it would have to look very seriously at any fundraising that they’ve (the committee) done and their financials. No I would never spend tax money that way,” she said.

In a live interview on ABC-7 Xtra on Sunday night, Conservation Committee leader Hector Gonzalez, when asked, could not say how much money the committee has raised for the building, despite hosting four events a year. Limon said the committee uses any money it collects to put on the next event. She said the committee is still responsible for fundraising if it wants to save the Lincoln Center. She said she envisions a multi-year capital campaign to raise money for the center, if TxDot agrees to release the building to the City without a reversion clause.

The reversion clause would allow TxDot to take the building back with 30 days notice, even if the City were to lease it and invest money on it. City Council on Tuesday postponed a decision that would have directed the City Manager to come up with a financial plan for the Center, until the June 26 TxDot meeting when State Sen. Jose Rodriguez and State Rep. Joe Pickett are slated to begin negotiations with TxDot about the Lincoln Center.

“There’s people thinking that the city is going to be responsible of the refurbishing and all of the maintenance and upkeep of Lincoln center and that’s not necessarily a reality. it could take another year or two. It just depends how long it’ll take the conservation group to garner the money and raise the funds to do a capital campaign for it. But at least they’ll have the sense that they’re building on something solid,” said Limon.

Limon showed a letter she received expressing support for the renovation of the Lincoln Center from the Westside Preservation Alliance, a community based historic preservation group in San Antonio. She said the Committee can ask other groups like that one, for financial support.