The largest land owner in the footprint of a planned downtown convention center has turned from friend to foe of the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency. Tower Investments has filed suit to see appraisals of its property after MDHA condemned the land last month.
An affiliate of Tower Investments owns more than 5.5 acres south of the Sommet Center.
Tower vice president Alex Marks says the condemnation came as a surprise because the two sides had been negotiating with an uncommonly high level of transparency. Tower gave MDHA confidential financial statements for the parcels.
“Their existing use is a parking lot. We have income from the parking lot. We turned things like that over to them.”
In return, MDHA was to let Tower see the appraisals. But Marks says the agency has refused after making an offer below what Marks considers fair market value. In condemning the property, MDHA would pay nearly $15 million for Tower’s parking lot, which has a tax appraised value of $12.6 million.
“For the moment, it’s put us in an adversarial position, and an adversarial position on a project of this importance to our community is unfortunate.”
Marks says he remains supportive of the new convention center, though his relationship with MDHA has become stressed.
Response from MDHA via email:
“The petition’s characterizations of our conversations with Tower are inaccurate and we will answer these allegations in court.”
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