by Bradley Parsons
Staff Writer
The Plaza at Berkman owners have yet to be paid by the City for maintaining the development’s surrounding Riverwalk, but City representatives say the check is in the mail.
City Parks and Recreation Department spokesperson Pam Wilson said a $22,000 check would be sent within the next couple weeks to D.B. Holdings, LLC. The City agreed to reimburse the Atlanta developer for upkeep on the Riverwalk fringing the development, landscaping work and fountain maintenance.
Wilson said a misunderstanding had delayed the first quarterly payment. City ordinance requires the City receive an invoice for such payments. D.B. Holdings attorney Joe O’Shields said the Nov. 5, 2003 maintenance agreement made no mention of the requirement. After being told of the discrepancy, Wilson said the City had received an invoice and is now processing payment. She said there shouldn’t be future delays in payment.
“Apparently the management at Berkman didn’t understand that an invoice was needed, because it’s not in the contract,” said Wilson. “It was just a matter of working out some initial kinks. Now that we’re on the same page, I don’t think there will be any more problems.”
O’Shields, whose letters warned the City that it could default if timely payments were not made, said he’d been assured that the money was on the way and that future payments would be made on time.
His Feb.13 letter was a follow-up to a similar written inquiry made a week earlier. O’Shields said he sent the second letter after City employees told him that the City did not have a system in place to make the payments, apparently referring to the invoice requirement.
Both O’Shields and Wilson expressed their faith in the working relationship between the City and D.B. Holdings, indicating that eight months of sometimes testy negotiations could have reached an amenable end.
The City and developer squabbled over who would foot the bill for underwater repairs to the bulkhead fronting the future site for the development’s second phase.
D.B. Holdings originally estimated the bill at $1.3 million, however the City, following its own inspection, agreed to a more limited $215,000 repair. Once those repairs are finished, the developer will pay to build the Riverwalk.
The unfinished section currently represents a 430–foot break in what the City envisions as a continuous Riverwalk, leading from Alltel Stadium to the Landing.