Montrose staff to draft developer agreement for proposed 160‑unit Hub at Montrose Crossing

City staff will draft a developer agreement for the proposed Hub at Montrose Crossing after a work‑session discussion that outlined the project’s history, options for city participation and council concerns about affordability and use of public funds.

City engineer Scott Murphy described the project’s evolution from an earlier 192‑unit concept to a single 160‑unit apartment building and reviewed prior city support packages that ranged from roughly $2.35 million in earlier plans to about $1.8 million under the subdivision layout now before council. Murphy said a menu of possible city participation tools — permit and plan check fee waivers, utility connection fee relief, and reimbursable public infrastructure work — could be included in a future development agreement.

City Manager Bill Bell told council the most politically straightforward options are fee waivers the city manager can authorize; the most challenging is whether to absorb utility connection fees into the general fund or to treat them as a utility waiver. Bell said the city’s general fund is constrained while the public works facility project consumes much of the near‑term capital budget, and suggested a reimbursement schedule tied to project completion and certificate of occupancy if council wants to limit up‑front general‑fund exposure.

The developer, Matt Miles, described the project as a roughly $52 million development and stressed local housing benefits: “I’m gonna spend $52,000,000 in the next 30 months on this project,” he said, arguing the units would help free up existing housing and support workforce needs.

Some council members pushed back on the city providing large infrastructure offsets for market‑rate apartments. One council member said the proposal appears to offer “freebies to the developers” and questioned whether waiving roughly $1 million in utility connection fees or contributing infrastructure dollars is appropriate for a market‑rate project that may not serve lower‑income households. Staff and several council members responded that an independent economic analysis would help quantify net sales‑tax and indirect benefits before the council makes a final determination.

Public comment echoed those themes: residents raised traffic and pedestrian safety concerns near the site and urged staff to produce clear estimates of the revenue a filled 160‑unit building would generate. Several speakers recommended a short, third‑party study to forecast the city’s return on any concessions.

Next steps: staff will draft a developer agreement that can include optional columns for different participation elements, and council signaled general consensus to proceed with drafting and to seek an independent economic analysis to quantify direct and indirect benefits before any final approval at a regular council meeting.