ESCANABA — Despite questions about the morality of giving tax incentives to a developer that blighted its own building by capping a sewer, the Escanaba City Council unanimously approved a Brownfield Redevelopment Plan for the former Super One Foods building Thursday night.

“It’s perfectly legal. It doesn’t matter if an earthquake did it or a burglar did it or the owner did it. They’re a brownfield. Now is that a good law? I don’t know, but is it legal? Absolutely. Is it immoral? I don’t know, but we’re not here for morality, we’re here for law,” said Council Member Ralph Blasier.

The property was designated a brownfield last April after the authority narrowly approved considering the former grocery store “blighted” under the Brownfield Redevelopment Act, Public Act 381. The act specifies properties can be considered blighted and eligible for brownfield designation if the property “has had the utilities, plumbing, heating, or sewage permanently disconnected, destroyed, removed or rendered ineffective so that the property is unfit for intended use.” The sewer was capped by Dial Companies, which owns the property, in an effort to make the site fit the designation.

Having a property designated as a brownfield opens developers up to a number of tax incentives and grants to bring a development to fruition. However, for the city the key issue is the property’s access to tax incremental financing (TIF) reimbursements. In the case of brownfield sites, this means the difference between a property’s taxable amount at the time it was designated a brownfield and the value of the property once it has been developed can be captured by the authority for a set period of time and returned to the developer to pay for specific eligible expenses that are included in a plan approved by the authority and the city council.

The plan approved Tuesday specifies the developers intend to demolish the Super One building and construct an 80 room motel, which is tentatively a Hampton Inn. Large portions of the parking lot will be removed and reconfigured to include a 5,400 square-foot restaurant near the former Staples building and a 1,950 square-foot restaurant near the Auto Zone and Advanced Auto Parts stores. Over the course of 15 years, a maximum of $477,650 will be collected from taxes and reimbursed for costs including demolition, hazardous materials abatement, site plan preparation, and engineering.

“I feel the idea will help us see … redevelopment of a site that could over the next few years develop into really a problem for the community, so I’m in favor of this and will vote that way,” said Mayor Marc Tall.

In other business Tuesday, the council:

– Reversed a prior decision made at the last council meeting to increase slip fees at the marina. A special Harbor Advisory Committee meeting will be held to re-evaluate the rates, which have been questioned by boaters. Council members said the rates were approved based on information they did not fully understand.

– Approved entering into a contract with OHM for traffic signal design at Danforth Road and North 30th Street for an amount not to exceed $13,000. The project is funded through various grants that have already been awarded.

– Recognized the Escanaba Baseball Team as a nonprofit for the purposes of seeking a charitable gaming license to hold fundraising raffles.