Gordon Etzler

"I think it's a conflict of interest to take money from the city and then turn around and become the developer," said Gordon Etzler, attorney for the Eastgate Property Owners Association.
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Etzler was more concise: "Larry Gough was the city's selection."
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Aside from Etzler, landowners along Lincolnway were hesitant to go on record criticizing Gough's consulting deal.

"The property owners are going to develop a letter of intent to present to the commission, so they have something more specific than a resolution," Gordon Etzler, lawyer for the Eastgate Property Owners Association, said Wednesday.
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Etzler said the commission could serve as the umbrella agency to obtain grants for design studies, the relocation and improvement of utilities, land use planning and the training of new employees, who would be attracted to the new businesses.The commission also would be able to use its condemnation power to get around those property owners who "don't want to be part of the process."

"There are so many factors the commission is dealing with, it's an amazement it came up with a plan (for the triangle intersection) to take care of all these things, but it is still a very complex plan and there is a simpler way to do it," he said.

Etzler admitted that if the city had come to them a year ago with a plan to redevelop the whole area, the property owners would have resisted it.With the success of the Valparaiso Marketplace, that has changed in the past year and has led to the plan to present the commission with the letter of intent, probably after November.

"The east end of town is developing so quickly.All the big property owners on the north side of Lincolnway are willing to do this, and, when you have a large percentage of land ownership that is of one frame of mind, you can do this."

The triangle and the Eastgate projects are still in the design stage, so there is still time to make adjustments, Etzler said.He said the redevelopment would enable the city to group similar businesses, such as auto repair, parts and rental businesses, on the north side of Lincolnway and use the south side for hotels, barber shops, banks, medical clinics and restaurants to compete with the marketplace.

He said the property owners have developers interested in the project, and they presented the commission with information two weeks ago for how it could be done.

"There's going to be a lot of money spent out there, and we've got to use that as a springboard to develop more of a community project out of the whole thing.If this area on East Lincolnway is developed appropriately, it will be like the marketplace.A lot of benefits could be derived from this."

Etzler said the property owners are not at loggerheads with the commission, despite the apparent disagreement over the extent of the improvements to be made.

Valparaiso University President Alan Harre, Porter Memorial Health System Vice President Cristobal Rael and lawyer Gordon Etzler, spokesman for the Eastgate Property Owners Association, all spoke in favor of the plan.
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The hospital's project could be seen as the first step in the redevelopment of the area, but Etzler said there's also concern the 3D project could drive the design and access of the rest of Eastgate in a way that might not be beneficial to the other properties.He asked the city to consider a moratorium on any construction until Camiros finishes its overall concept for the area.