Council wants Renaissance investment up front, curfew talk likely just rumors

There's been a slight twist in Greensboro's decision to give the Renaissance Center Group a $2 million forgivable loan to rebuild the Renaissance Shopping Center on Phillips Avenue: Now council would like to see the developers front their portion of the deal.

Councilman Tony Wilkins, who represents District 5 and voted in favor of the loan, suggested that the group put its $2 million investment into the site at the beginning.

"I don’t think we specified the sequence of events during the meeting," Wilkins said, referring to council's vote to sell the property and give the loan in early June.  "To me it would only make sense financially for the investors to put their $2 million up front so that when we gave them the $2 million loan we had that $2 million collateral in the building. I’m not asking to take a penny away from what was offered."

At-large Councilwoman Nancy Vaughan agreed.

"It would just give the community some more safeguards," she said. "I think the majority of council thinks it a pretty good idea."

Council will vote on the specifics of the contract with the Renaissance Center Group at its mid-July meeting, which Vaughan said will be a long one in part because the post-RUCO committee and the noise ordinance are both on the agenda.

"It looks like we’re going to have to bring our pajamas," she said, adding that the meeting may be split over two consecutive days to keep the meeting from running too late at night, similarly to its June 18 meeting.

Council needs to either hold a public hearing or an upset bid process for the sale and redevelopment of the Renaissance Shopping Center, Vaughan said. She believes there will be a public hearing at council's next meeting.

In other city council news...
A rumor circulated this week that someone on city council is interested in revisiting the teen curfew, but as far as we can tell, it isn't going anywhere quickly.

"I heard it mentioned in passing but I didn’t think it was a serious discussion," Vaughan said, declining to say which council member brought it up and adding it was unlikely that she'd support it.

Wilkins, Mayor Robbie Perkins and Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann said they hadn't heard anything about revisiting the curfew. Councilman Zack Matheny, who brought up the initial temporary curfew, could not be reached this week. City spokesperson Jake Keyes said the issue is not on council's agenda and that he couldn't find anyone that knows anything about it.

Let's consider the curfew dead for now, and I hope it stays that way.