A deal for the purchase of JEA’s former Southside Generating Station property on the Downtown Southbank is back where it started.
As originally negotiated, Elements of Jacksonville LLC, led by developer Peter Rummell and The Dalton Agency executive Michael Munz, will purchase the property from the utility for $18.5 million.
That eliminates a plan for the Downtown Investment Authority to buy the property.
The JEA board of directors approved an amendment Tuesday removing the city from the purchase and sale agreement less than a month after assigning the deal to it and the DIA, instead of Elements.
Elements is working to develop the site into a mixed-use project called The District.
It is the fifth time the agreement has been amended since Elements was awarded the right to buy and develop the land through a JEA Request for Proposal in 2014.
Munz made the formal request Tuesday during the JEA board of directors meeting.
“It became, as we went through this, from putting all the legal parts to it, more complicated than we felt it should be,” Munz said after the meeting.
“So we made this request to the JEA board, and as you all saw they unanimously supported that,” he said.
In December, the JEA board agreed to amend the agreement for the fourth time to assign the purchase to the city, and to extend the closing date to July 16.
On Jan. 10, the DIA agreed to buy the land for $18.6 million, with the city investing $26.4 million in public infrastructure. The DIA was to pay JEA $1.86 million upfront with the remaining balance repaid over 20 years by funds from the tax revenue generated by Southbank Tax Increment District.
With that deal now dead, the city’s financial involvement is unclear. Munz said those details were not available.
“That’s a crystal ball question that I can’t answer right now,” Munz said. “We haven’t even had those conversations.”
Elements scored the highest during a Request for Proposal process in 2014 to purchase the land from JEA, but had not been able to close on the property without the extensions.
JEA board Chair Alan Howard said he was pleased to see the deal going back to what was previously agreed upon.
“We wanted the contract to go to conclusion as it was bid,” Howard said after the meeting. “From the JEA perspective, we just wanted the deal that was originally bid.”
Howard said he and other board members had closely monitored the evolving nature of the deal during and after the DIA evaluation process “with great interest.”
He and JEA CEO Paul McElroy met with Mayor Lenny Curry’s Chief Administrative Officer Sam Mousa and other officials Friday at City Hall to discuss the status of the land sale.
Before that meeting, McElroy said the sides needed to “hammer out the details,” although Howard declined to disclose the discussion Tuesday.
Howard also declined to comment when asked if he thought it was appropriate for the city to both buy the land and offer incentives for the project, since those additions were not part of the RFP issued in 2014.
That concern was raised by Council member Matt Schellenberg, among others, who said he thought other developers would have submitted bids if they knew the city was offering incentives.
“I can’t comment or speculate on the challenges that may have existed if the transaction had gone a different way,” Howard said. “We’re just happy that it ended up where it started, with Elements buying the land from JEA for the bid purchase price.”
Unease surfaced in the days after the DIA special meeting and culminated with City Council President Anna Lopez Brosche assigning Schellenberg to head a special council committee Thursday to review the project.
Schellenberg said the committee meeting scheduled this week was no longer necessary.
Brosche said she was not aware Elements was pursuing further changes to the development deal, but said she believed it was a positive step.
“I’m pleased that it appears the project is moving forward,” Brosche said.
The mayor’s office offered a statement, saying through a spokeswoman that “DIA, JEA and the developer team continues their work, and as the process is moving, Mayor Curry’s administration will continue to monitor the progress.”
The office declined to say if the city would offer any further financial assistance to the project.
“Mayor Curry’s priorities on this and all development projects remain consistent; the mayor wants to encourage projects that create jobs and grow the economy while protecting taxpayers’ hard-earned money,” it states.
Elements’ plan for the site includes more than 1,100 apartments, condos and townhomes, as well as a mix of office and retail anchored by an unidentified grocery store chain and pharmacy.
It also includes several acres of public riverfront park land, private and public marina slips, and an extension of the Southbank Riverwalk.
Rummell and Munz have stated the project will need about $433 million in private capital to work.
Elements has until July 16 to close on the property.