by Glenn Tschimpke
Staff Writer
A proposed 12-story mixed use building project downtown is in jeopardy of being squashed in favor of surface parking and a pocket park.
The City has condemned a three-quarter acre lot at 325 Main St. to acquire the land through eminent domain. The property, if the City gets it, is slated as a complementary addition to the new downtown library across the street.
John DeSalvo, trustee of the Eunice E. Demery Trust and effective owner of the land, has different plans for the site, which is currently a surface parking lot. DeSalvo and developer Tenant International Development Group want to build a mixed use structure called The Landmark, which would include 12,000 square feet of retail, 84,237 square feet of Class A office space and an eight-level parking garage which would contain 891 parking spaces.
However, the City wants to construct a pocket park and heavily landscaped surface parking to accommodate school buses when children visit the library. City Council resolved to acquire the land through eminent domain last summer and the City has offered DeSalvo $662,000 for the property, which is well above the appraised price listed in property appraiser’s data base.
DeSalvo would not comment on the matter, but Mark Jackson of Tenant International called the price low.
“That land is worth between $1.2 and $1.4 million by comparative sales in the area,” he said. “They simply want to control it so they can control what’s across the street from the image of what will be the new main library.”
The City has done business with DeSalvo before, purchasing the land where the library will be built. By all accounts, that deal went relatively smoothly.
Last July, the Downtown Development Authority approved a seven-story version of The Landmark with a few minor exceptions. Plans for the project subsequently changed to include more retail and parking space. When Jackson went back to the DDA in August, he learned that City Council had approved an order of taking under eminent domain for the land in the interim.
“We were never notified,” said Jackson. “If we had been notified they were going to take the land, we would have been at that City Council meeting.”
Council vice president Suzanne Jenkins was deposed last week by DeSalvo’s attorney, Bill Birchfield, to relate her memories of last summer. DeSalvo had come to Jenkins before the Council voted to take the land. She referred DeSalvo to Sam Mousa, the City’s chief administrator, and assumed the matter had been resolved.
Mousa would not comment for this story and directed all questions to City attorney Bruce Page while the matter is in litigation.
“The City wants a great library,” said Page. “The plans are to put a surface parking lot with heavy landscaping and a pocket park on the land.”
Jackson claims the City’s intentions don’t make sense and has offered to lease space in The Landmark’s parking garage to the City for library use.
“It’s ironic to us,” he said. “We want to build exactly what the City wants. We said they can use our parking garage and they can put the pocket park where the library’s parking garage is going to go.”
Part of the library’s plans call for a dedicated 660-space parking garage adjacent to the facility on Duval Street. Jackson’s offer of 450-500 spaces in The Landmark’s garage would decrease the planned amount of available parking for the library. Also, Mayor John Delaney has stressed that library parking would be free. Jackson said he would lease spaces to the City at about $100 a month, which is a cost the City would have to absorb to keep with the mayor’s edict.