Kevin O’Connor Kommentary for Monday, October 1

College Station City Council To Consider Selling The City’s Northgate Surface Parking Lot For $13 Million Dollars

The College Station city council expresses no opposition in the first public disclosure of the possible sale of the Northgate district surface parking lot. That followed a presentation, discussion, and public comments lasting almost two hours at Thursday’s council meeting (December 12). Click HERE to read and download presentation materials from the December 12, 2024 College Station city council meeting. The following morning on WTAW’s The Infomaniacs, the city’s chief development officer says the developer’s concept is a multi story, mixed use building with retail on the ground floor and an undisclosed number of floors of student housing. And the city’s planning and development director told the council if approved, the proposal would join 20 multistory student housing buildings that are either open, under construction, or are in another stage of development…creating as many as 11,000 beds. A proposed timeline from city staff calls on the College Station council to consider a sales agreement with the developer in January. If what is currently a $13 million dollar offer is approved, the timeline calls for the sale to be closed in May 2026. During that time, there will be public engagement on the future development. That was welcomed by two of six public speakers at the council meeting, the second generation owner of Duddley’s Draw, Dee Benning, and the operations director at the Dixie Chicken, Courtney Phillips. As previously announced, the city will require the developer to create at least 100 parking spaces, make room for ride share drop off and pick up area, build restrooms, build a police substation, build a place to store trash containers, and reserve land for green space, a plaza, or a courtyard area. Click below to hear comments from the December 12, 2024 College Station city council meeting: Listen to “College Station city council to consider selling the city's Northgate surface parking lot for $13 million dollars” on Spreaker.

Blinn College Fall Enrollment Almost Reaches Last Year’s Post Pandemic High

Blinn College trustees learn that fall enrollment came close to last fall’s post pandemic high. Click HERE to read and download presentation materials from the December 9, 2024 Blinn College trustees meeting. Vice chancellor Becky McBride says on the RELLIS campus, an increase of 504 from last fall is due to Blinn’s relationships with the branch locations of some of the Texas A&M system’s four year universities. 4,306 hundred students at Blinn’s RELLIS location continues to get closer to the headcount at Bryan. This fall, the Bryan campus had 5,095. That’s compared with 6,103 in the fall of 2023 and more than 13,000 in 2014. McBride repeated the continued decline on the Bryan campus is due to Texas A&M increasing the number of freshman classes. She also said 30 of the 43 public universities in Texas have increased freshman enrollment. Trustee Dennis Crowson, who held McBride’s position when the Bryan campus had more than 13,000 students, said he wants to see a plan to increase enrollment on the Bryan campus. Crowson added “reversing a negative enrollment trend is really difficult” and “that’s really concerning with that campus.” District wide, Blinn’s fall enrollment was 18,089, compared with 18,301 in the fall of 2023. Another enrollment group with a sizeable increase from last fall were the number of high school dual credit students, which rose from 2,145 to 2,552. McBride also told trustees enrollment for Blinn’s winter minimester and spring semester are ahead compared with this time last year. Click below for comments from the December 9, 2024 Blinn College trustees meeting:  

Backstory Behind The Decision Stopping A Second Multipurpose Center At Bryan’s Midtown Park

The Bryan city council officially decides at this week’s meeting (December 10) to put an end to the development of a second multipurpose building at Midtown Park that would have also been used by the Texas A&M tennis teams. Presenting the backstory before the council’s unanimous vote, mayor Bobby Gutierrez said the outside companies hired to design the building within a $17 million dollar budget first came up with something that looked like a “haybarn” or an “airplane hangar”. Gutierrez said when the design companies were reminded that the design was supposed to complement Midtown Park’s Legends Events Center, the price went to $27 million dollars. The mayor said when the design companies were reminded about the $17 million dollar budget, the building’s size was reduced from 65,000 to 45,000 square feet. Gutierrez said it was a joint decision with Texas A&M to end the project. The city and the university are splitting $852,000 dollars in costs to the design firm. Click HERE to read and download the termination agreement with the Texas A&M system that was approved at the December 10, 2024 Bryan city council meeting. Click HERE to read and download background information associated with the termination agreement. Click HERE to read and download background information about the termination of the city’s design and construction contract. Click HERE to read and download background information about the termination of the city’s third party operator contract. Click below to hear comments from the December 10, 2024 Bryan city council meeting from mayor Bobby Gutierrez and councilmen Jared Salvato and James Edge. Listen to “Backstory behind the decision stopping a second multipurpose center at Bryan's Midtown Park” on Spreaker.