The Michigan Daily - Thursday, March 27, 1986 -Page 5
Huron Plaza developers sue Ann Arbor
By SUSAN GRANT
The developers of the proposed Huron Plaza
hotel and conference center sued the city
Tuesday after the Ann Arbor City Council
rejected their plan.
The Huron Plaza project would contain a 400-
room hotel, a large conference center for ap-
proximately 1,500 people, retail space, and 82-
on-site parking spaces. The developers also
had planned to cooperate with the city in
building additonal off-site parking.
The project's developers, Huron Plaza of Ann
Arbor Limited Partnership, filed suit because
the council did not approve their site plan even
though it conforms to all city ordinances, said
general partner Richard Berger.
BERGER said the decision to sue was made
earlier.
"If we made that decision after the vote we
would not have filed suit this quickly," Berger
said. "To be frank, at each stage we were
prepared with a contingent plan."
"Our last plan was to sue the city," he said.
"We did not want to, but had no choice. But
when the council turned down the plan,
it was all we could do."
At their meeting Monday night, coun-
cilmembers who voted against the plan said
they were concerned that Huron Plaza would
have taken up scarce parking spaces and
caused traffic flow problems. The hotel/con-
ference center would have been bordered by
Huron, Washington, Ashley, and First Streets.
COUNCILMEMBERS also said they thought
the disruption caused by construction could en-
courage other businesses in the area to move
out.
The more important conflict, however, is
over parking, a perennial problem in Ann Ar-
bor. Berger has an alternate plan which would
provide 389 parking spaces beneath Huron
Plaza, but he would have to reduce the height of
the building form 14 stories in order to comply
with city zoning ordinances.
Attempts to change the zoning ordinance
have been rejected twice, and it does not look
like it will ever pass.
Berger said he will ask Third Circuit Court
Judge Edward Deake at an April 25 hearing to
order the council to accept one of the plans.
COUNCILMEMBER Kathy Edgren (D-Fifth
Ward) said, "Many people do not realize that
Berger can have his underground parking if he
reduces the building size."
"He wants the city to bend over backwards
and change its laws, but he is perfectly free to
build the underground parking if he reduces the
height by a couple stories," she said.
If Huron Plaza of Ann Arbor Limited Par-
tnership wins its suit and the judge forces the
council to accept the Huron Plaza site plan, it
would probably be the plan with 82 parking
spaces because the other plan would be illegal.
Limited Partnership also would lose the right
to negotiate with the city to build additional off-
site parking.
Unless the judge lets the developers go with
the underground parking plan, the partnership
may have trouble getting financing because a
400-room hotel with just 82 parking spaces
could be a motorists' nightmare.
"From what I've heard, unless he were to
get the plan with underground parking, he will
never get the financing," said Councilmember
Gerald Jernigan (R-Fourth Ward).
Senate fights over Reagan's proposed aid to Contras
(Continued from Page 1)
lead to a wider war," Kennedy said,
resurrecting arguments that helped
defeat Reagan's request last week in
the Democratic-controlled House.
But even he said Reagan's suppor-
ters have the votes to pass some aid
package in the Senate. Nonetheless,
Kennedy said the fight will resume in
the House.
"This is not the end of the war, it's
just a battle," he sasid, hoping the
House will continue to oppose the aid
package. "The American people do not
want to see a policy that can result in
their sons being caught in the swamps
of Central America."
Senate Republican Leader Robert
Dole said, "I think (Nicaraguan
President Daniel) Ortega gave us a
boost. . I hope they don't pull out
while we're debating this."
IN NICARAGUA, the Sandinista
government charged the United
States with trying to "create an ar-
Engineering searches for a new dean
tificial conflict" between Honduras
and Nicaragua and called for a
peacekeeping force to monitor the
border.
"If Honduras wants peace, surely
they will not oppose the creation of a
supervisory (border) commission,"
said Deputy Foreign Minister Jose
Leon Talavera in statements
published yesterday. Nicaragua
asked the four nations of the Con-
tadora peaceseeking group (Mexico,
Venezuela, Colombia and Panama -
and its support group - Brazil,
Argentina, Peru and Uruguay to form
and oversee the border patrol.
The commission would be similar to
a task force established last month by
Nicaragua and Costa Rica, also under
Contadora auspices, to prevent bor-
der incidents between the two coun-
tries.
THE FORMATION of the
Nicaragua-Costa Rica task force was
hailed as an important step in im-
proving relations between the two
countries, made tense by the presence
of anti-Nicaraguan Contra rebles in
northern Costa Rica.
The Nicaraguans say Contras have
frequently tried to draw Managua's
troops over the border into Honduras
or Costa Rica, to provoke an inter-
national incident.
IF, (Continuedfrom Paee 1)
criticism from humanities professors.
Duderstadt has also been respon-
sible for adding more than 100 new
faculty to the college's total of 320
teaching personnel in five years, a
figure made possible by the institution
of a merit-based salary program,
funded by alumni donations.
In addition, Duderstadt's ad-
ministration saw the completion of
the College of Engineering's move to
1 North Campus, a 30-year process
which will be finished this fall with the
opening of the Electrical
Engineering and Computer Science
Building.
THE BUILDING, which culminates
the administration's decision to
merge the computer science depar-
tment with the Department of Elec-
trical Engineering, will house an $8.5
million solid-state electronics
laboratory to be used for electronics
and optics research. The laboratory is
just one of several programs started
under Duderstadt to make the
engineering college a high-tech
leader.
Faced with a shrinking budget and
expanding enrollment when he took
office in 1981, Duderstadt has in-
creased the engineering budget in an
era where most colleges see a
frustrating stagnation, if not a
decrease, in funds.
Duderstadt also played a vital role
in lobbying the state last year for the
University's share of Gov. James
Blanchard's special $25 million
Research Excellence Fund, which
aided top Michigan colleges and
universities.
"He has been a real articulate
spokesman on behalf of the College of
Engineering. He is presuasive in ter-
ms of the internal allocation process,"
said Richard Kennedy, University
vice president for state relations.
"The new dean will be blessed with a
much healthier funding situation. He
will have certain strengths on which
to build."
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MSA candidates upset
with sparse voter turnout
(Continued from Page 1)
night, but acutally its only day of
operation was Tuesday.
Jen Faigel, Student Rights Party.
presidential candidate, also blamed
the low voter turnout on organization,,
in addition to too much election quib-
bling. "It has to deal with
organization, polls not being open,
and changes. Keeping some polls open
longer to try to help was a good idea,
but people didn't know," Faigel said.
MSA election officials have had to
handle controversies over the
Meadow Party's right to use Opus, a
penguin from the Bloom Colunty
Comic Strip, as a campaign sfogan,
and accusations that Student Rights
candidates were once members of a
"Marxist group."
Correction
A story in yesterday's Daily on local
4 experts' reactions to the U.S. conflict
with Libya implied that political
science graduate student Dennis
Sullivan thinks the only way to stop
terrorism would be to engage in an
all-out war with Libya. Sullivan ac-
tually said that the only way to over-
throw Libyan leader Moammar
Khadafy would be to wage war, but
Sullivan does not advocate that as a
solution. The Daily regrets the error.
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Election director Marci Higer said
the low number of votes had nothing
to do with poll sites. "If anything, they
helped because they were in more
places than last year," she said. Higer
added that "the election was two
weeks earlier this year and it was
harder to publicize on anyone's part."
Election results for president and
vice president would be available at 6
a.m. this morning, Higer said. Last
night, votes were verified by checking
student identification numbers on the
voting envelopes.
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