The city of Austin may have to rethink its requirements for low-interest downtown loans after the first applicants, Garth and Jeanne Seavey, gave up in disgust at all the "hoops and loops" they were required to go through.

Monday, August 14, 2000

The city of Austin may have to rethink its requirements for low-interest downtown loans after the first applicants, Garth and Jeanne Seavey, gave up in disgust at all the "hoops and loops" they were required to go through.

Last Wednesday was the second time the Austin Port Authority told the Seaveys they didn’t include enough information in their application for the city’s business arm to approve their application for a $20,000 loan. The couple is remodeling the properties they own on the Boardwalk, from 117 to 121 Fourth Ave. NE. The shops affected by the remodeling are the Healing Arts Center, Specialty Personnel, Creative Cuts on the Boardwalk and the yet-to-open Ego Shop, which will occupy the space formerly taken by Good Earth Health Foods. Before it was the Boardwalk, the property was the Grand Hotel.

Garth Seavey said at the meeting that the remodeling would continue, probably with his own monies, because he wasn’t willing to give the city his entire financial history, in part, because it would become public knowledge once it was in the city’s hands.

Port Authority President Dick Chaffee was sympathetic.

"Maybe we have entirely too many hoops and loops to go through," he said after the meeting. "I think Garth Seavey’s project falls entirely within the parameters of the city’s intentions with these downtown loans. I think we have to take the requirements back to the council finance committee and rework them."

City Administrator Pat McGarvey explained that the loan requirements are modeled after those developed in Hopkins, where the downtown has been almost entirely remodeled over the past 20 years. He said the difference between Austin and Hopkins at this point, however, is while the city of Hopkins made some very large loans to businesses, Austin has set the matching loan limit at $25,000.

McGarvey agreed that some of the application requirements should be reworked, because in some cases the research required makes the cost of applying for a loan unreasonable. One example he gave was the requirement to prove there was no environmental risk associated with the property, something he said was reasonable if a businessperson was removing, for example, a gas station, but not in the Seaveys’ case of a simple remodeling job.

This was the first application for one of the downtown loans, which have been available from the city since last June. McGarvey said the city has had five other prospects, but no others who actually have taken the plunge yet.

"Our intention was to assist people looking to do some bigger and better projects that will beautify the downtown area," Chaffee said. "However, we need to make sure it’s possible for these people to get the loans. I’m sorry Mr. Seavey has been through all this work and he’s still at ground zero."

The Port Authority continued the Seavey loan question as well as a hearing on the sale of city-owned land to Cooperative Response Center to their next meeting, tentatively set for Aug. 30.