by J. Brooks Terry
Staff Writer
The Shipyards, downtown’s largest proposed residential development, has endured its share of setbacks. Allegations of improper money management cost TriLegacy its role as project developer and City officials who helped craft the multi-million dollar deal have since spent time in front of a grand jury.
Now the project’s original investors, who have for months kept silent, are preparing to speak out.
Michael Freed, managing partner of law firm Brennan, Manna & Diamond, said this week that a group of those investors would be taking legal action if they are not substantially accommodated or compensated in some way.
“The problems associated with the Shipyards have been well reported,” Freed said. “But you’ve yet to hear about the people who were persuaded to invest large amounts of money, in one case as much as $240,000, to live there.”
With LandMar being touted as a potential heir to the project, Freed said his clients’ case “may be at a turning point.”
Before the end of April, the City Council is expected to vote on legislation that would authorize LandMar to resume work on the Shipyards but the size, scope and price range of the revamped project remains to be seen.
Freed said his clients and other contacted investors may be in a position of not only getting a refund on their original deposits but also stand to take home any expected appreciated value.
“TriLegacy indicated to my clients that this project would continue to become more and more valuable,” Freed said. “Obviously nothing has happened and the people who invested in the future of downtown Jacksonville, who believed in redeveloping it, are paying the price.”
TriLegacy officials said they intend to make good on the more than 50 any deposits collected on or before last year.
In a written statement, TriLegacy spokesperson Maria Coppola said “In accordance with Florida Law, TriLegacy has always maintained the buyers’ funds in escrow and is is willing to refund the money at anytime.”
But Freed said once a new developer, LandMar or otherwise, takes ownership of the Shipyards property, it will be considerably more difficult for his clients to obtain restitution or, more importantly, get what they paid for.
“The land is the only asset TriLegacy has,” he said. “Once that’s gone, my clients will be in a much more precarious position. They paid a premium price for one product, but they’ll probably be put in a position to settle for something much less. When you consider that, a refund becomes part of a larger issue.”
Representatives from LandMar and the City would not comment on what form the new Shipyards project would take, saying they were not involved with the negotiations made with the original investors and that TriLegacy should remain accountable for any deposits collected or product promised before any highly publicized problems began.
“LandMar is not party to any of the previous purchase agreements,” said Michael Munz, a LandMar spokesperson. “It is our understanding anyone who may have signed a contract with TriLegacy should have been contacted by them and made aware that they are not going to build.”
Munz said LandMar’s role with those purchasers would be little more than that of a potential real estate agent.
“We’ve made a pledge to provide the best and most accurate information to those people,” Munz said. “If possible we will work closely with them to secure the original purchasers new condominiums if LandMar is successful in continuing in the Shipyards project.”
Munz said those buyers would be given “the first and best options to purchase.”
Freed said a law suit would be possible but a last resort.
“It just seems to me that it would be shortsighted to not have considered the people who took a leap of faith and invested money in this project years ago,” he said. “Without people like that, nothing can happen and anybody who chooses to invest in the new project would have to look at what’s happening to my clients now.”