On September 22, 2025, the Woodstock City Council held a special workshop meeting focused on presentations from two developer teams vying to redevelop the Die Cast site, a key downtown parcel. Mayor Turner opened by emphasizing the site's importance, recounting prior failed attempts, and explaining the new process—vetting developers for track record and financial strength before design details. The meeting included public comment, two 45-minute developer presentations, and council Q&A.
Mayor Turner and Economic Development Director Jessica Erickson outlined the selection process: staff began outreach in February 2025, vetted multiple firms, and invited two strong groups to present. The goal is to choose a partner for negotiations—not to approve a final design. Council will provide individual direction to City Manager Roscoe Stelford, then staff will conduct 3–4 months of detailed discussions before returning with a formal redevelopment concept.
Team: Rick Filler (Harlem Irving Companies), Sam Zeller & Jeremy Ormland (Zeller Realty Group), Todd Beringhoff & Tim Bichek (Hamilton Partners), Katie Lambert (OKW Architects).
Team: Dave Ariola, John Murphy (Murphy Development Group), Greg DiRico (White & Company), McShane Construction.
Well, good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you to this evening's workshop meeting of the Woodstock City Council. A few brief announcements before we get started. The agenda, which is single topic focus for the most part, will be displayed on the on the uh monitors in the in the room. There will be an opportunity for public comment this evening at the start of the meeting. Um members of the public may come forward to the podium in the middle of the room if they're willing to do so, state their name and address for purpose of the record, and please feel free to make comments, not on this evening's agenda. There will be an opportunity for limited public comment and feedback as well at the end of the uh presentation for the die cast property. I want to assure the public that this is the first of many public uh meetings and discussions on the on the topic. So there will absolutely be an opportunity at every meeting for the public to provide input and and to weigh in. And I encourage the public to do that both within the meeting and certainly outside the meeting to us as representatives uh as well. Um couple introductory comments before we get started this evening. Um I had the opportunity to vote on the DICAST property about three or four months into my service in 2005, okay, on the Hummel group and this extraordinary development that they wanted to provide. Okay. Can't remember the total numbers, um, three, four hundred units, something like that, all brick, beautiful. Started with these fantastic row houses that in 05 they were selling for, I think five or five fifty, somewhere around there. Um, and they built, they built the ones that exist today, and then the entire market got absolutely slammed in 2008. Through that process, uh the city, um both every prior council and the prior mayor has been working to um to try to develop this site. And because it is an important part of our downtown, it infills and fills out our uh our downtown area. It's important to the economics of downtown, it's important to the heartbeat of of the city, in my opinion, because it is uh kind of the anchor project for residential downtown. And throughout my time on council and as mayor, it is one of the highest priorities because I know that our businesses need it, our economy needs it, our city needs it, and I think that it it again rounds out and completes kind of what we are in the downtown area. Um there have been two primary projects that in that came forward. One did not get approved and ever get started uh in 2019, and then the last one was the um CHR project that we went into with a lot of hope and confidence, and their financing model uh fell apart. And sometimes when you live by the sword, you die by the sword. And when that financing went south, we had to go back to the drawing board. So to the great credit of this council, the prior council, and also more so to city staff. They jumped on top of uh the opportunity and the need to go to market. And also to their credit, this is not really didn't occur on this side of the of the bench, uh, except for Roscoe. It occurred on that side of the bench, meaning that they took a different approach uh in going to market. Um their approach to put it simply in layman's terms, and Jessica explained it to me very very well over the last many uh weeks and months, but especially when we did an update at the end of last week. What we wanted to do was to find organizations that were interested in the project, obviously, but it then had track record of being able to deliver and committed, at least on the initial their initial ability to do so, committed to being able to complete a project, and we investigated that that ability to commit, ability to finish. Um and at the same time, they had great reputation, great finances, and built good product. And um it is my belief that both of the uh groups that we're talking today, actually either of them could probably be a or would be a first choice, well above what we've done previously. I view them both as very strong um organizations with um with the ability to serve the city. Um our purpose tonight is to listen to their proposals, their ability to present to us, and for us as a council, to ask them questions, okay, and to you know to discuss their vision and their strategy and to hear from them. So that out of this meeting, okay, and it will not occur at the very end of this meeting. It will allow we will allow each member of council to kind of let this let this settle into their mind as to what their direction is and they'll provide that direction to Roscoe as to who we should enter into negotiations and discussions with. And that's not negotiations or discussions on a final product that then suddenly we implement. No, that would be then to come back, to come back to come back to council in a formalized kind of pre-development you know, preliminary phase concept that then would involve a great deal of council review, public review, and we would also move to a redevelopment agreement potentially if there's uh if there's that strong enough interest, and if staff feels from their administrative viewpoint that it's worth doing, and if council, in the course of us uh you know, getting feedback from Roscoe and in the course of them coming before us as needed if we assess that as well. So we certainly are here to discuss and uh and put forth questions to them, but I also I don't view this as an extensive uh debate and discussion uh post the presentations. Um that would be a probably six to eight hour meeting versus the roughly I expect you know two and a half to three hour meeting that will occur today. It doesn't mean we're not gonna have those discussions. I want to be really clear. But I want to follow this process where they get a chance to present. Council gets a chance to ask questions, council get a chance gets a chance to have follow-up, and we each individually thoughtfully consider what our what our gut is, what our sense is as to who we want to then enter into more detailed discussions with. When I talk about detailed discussions, the the uh within the packet, if you saw it online, and I'm sure tonight as well, they're gonna present some preliminary ideas about the die cast site. And that's great. But I also want to caution, or not caution, but I want to guide that those are preliminary. Um they are not the final product. They're not final product on design, height, numbers, scale, uh, materials, which are a big deal. That's not that's that's not final by any stretch.