City, developer making progress on Bayside land sale
By Casey Conley
Feb 08, 2012 12:00 am
City officials say they are getting closer to a final agreement with Federated Cos., the Florida developer under contract to buy 3.25 acres in Bayside.
Federated began negotiating to buy seven adjoining parcels of city-owned land between Elm Street and Franklin Street almost nine months ago.
Logistical hurdles unrelated to the $2.3 million sale price have delayed the closing, but Greg Mitchell, the city’s economic development director, said those issues are mostly resolved.
“We were hopeful it would have moved more quickly,” Mitchell said in a recent interview, “but a number of elements to this transaction have led to us needing more time.”
He added that the city hopes “to be finalizing negotiations in the next 30 to 45 days, and sharing publicly the specifics associated with the transaction.” If all goes well, the sale could be final within three months.
Nick Wexler, chief operating officer of Miami-based Federated Cos., agreed that the transaction is still moving forward.
“From our perspective, the deal is definitely still on,” he said this week. “Whenever you have a public-private partnership like this, to some degree, there will always be some complexities. When you layer on a big project like this with some moving parts, it takes a little bit of time to work on specifics.”
Federated Cos., which has an office outside Boston, has developed housing and commercial projects up and down the East Coast. The company has proposed almost 1 million square feet of new development for the 3.25 acres for this site, and are hoping to build a hotel, 100,000 square feet of retail space, 550 luxury housing units and a 1,000-car parking garage.
Federated has already begun marketing the site as “Maritime Landing,” but has not submitted any final designs with the city. The development, which must be under construction within two years of the closing, will almost certainly be built in phases. Mitchell estimated the total development cost at about $100 million.
Members of the city council’s Housing and Community Development committee are expected to discuss the Federated deal in closed session during tonight’s meeting, at 5:30 p.m. at City Hall.
The logistical issues that have slowed the project are largely technical in nature. Mitchell said questions around the timing of building phases across the site, as well as efforts to remove deed restrictions from some parcels, have taken more time than expected. For example, the city has had to document contamination and identify possible remediation needs at a former rail yard and scrap yard within the site to allow residential development.
Wexler declined to comment on the subject of ongoing negotiations, but did not disagree with Mitchell’s assessment of the logistical hurdles under negotiation.
Councilor Nick Mavodones, who chairs the Housing and Community Development committee, said he is optimistic about the plan, which “fulfills a lot of the Bayside Vision the way housing is contemplated.”
Indeed, the city's Bayside Vision planning document calls for a mix of housing, retail and commercial uses in the neighborhood, which was an industrial and railroad center for generations.
In recent years, developers have built mid-rise office towers, student apartments and chain retail stores like EMS, Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods along major roads that bisect the neighborhood. Yet interior sections along Somerset and Lancester streets are mostly vacant.
The Housing and Community Development committee has already met twice on the Federated sale in the past month. Today’s meeting will likely give councilors an update on the progress but will not include a public hearing.
Councilor Cheryl Leeman said the negotiations between the city and Federated are “all in the little details.”
“We are just working out those details,” she said. “It’s like any kind of contract negotiation, there is a lot of back and forth, back and forth.”
