Council Extends Memorandum of Understanding by One Year
The City Council has voted six-to-one to extend our agreement with Forest City Residential for the redevelopment of the Echo Bay waterfront. Performance deadlines in our Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) were pushed back one year, but no other material changes were made. The Council took this action in recognition that current economic circumstances are not conducive to major development, but with the hope and expectation that Forest City will be able to proceed as the economy improves. The next major procedural step will be preparation of an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) that will rigorously examine project costs and benefits, and which must precede any final approvals.
As a reminder, the Echo Bay project is proposed to be a roughly twenty-six acre mixed-use development, featuring six acres of parkland, a continuous public waterfront promenade, a new community center, and moderately-scaled housing and shops. It would be sited on East Main Street, in an area that is presently heavily contaminated and occupied principally by abandoned or industrial uses.