This bizarre, big-money controversy in Baltimore keeps getting weirder and weirder.
Background: A hugely wealthy charity in Baltimore called the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation owns an enormous swath of land in the city's decrepit west end. It has dreamed up a plan to spend a kajllion dollars to redevelop that property. Nice folks. And it's not as if they envision a playground and some trash cans. They have signed on with the Cordish Company to do the work. You know the Cordish Company. It has done a ton of work in Baltimore. And the Pittsburgh Steelers are currently working with Cordish to being a concert venue to the North Side. Baltimore officials do not like the redevelopment plan, though. They want to control who does the redevelopment. So officials are planning to use eminent domain, condemn the Weinberg property and hire a developer based in New York. It is even worse than it sounds. Check here and here for sordid details and links.
News: So those Baltimore officials have moved forward with their plan to take the property and sell it to the New York developers they prefer. So at least the city will be getting some money into its coffers. Except no one knows if that's true. Seems that the contract the city drew up with the developer has some holes in it:
The Board of Estimates, the city's spending board, had been scheduled to vote Wednesday on a contract to sell 37 properties in 3.6 acres to the developer for $21.6 million. More than half of the properties are owned by the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, one of the city's largest charities. The Chera Group plans to build 400 market-rate apartments, 1,000 parking spaces and as much as 200,000 square feet of shops.
But the board postponed the vote until its Jan. 10 meeting after Comptroller Joan M. Pratt raised concerns that the agreement put no cap on the cost of demolition, environmental cleanup and streetscape improvements that the developer could deduct. The agreement estimates those costs at $8 million.
Pratt also said she wanted more clarification on the failed negotiations between the city and the Weinberg Foundation over the Weinberg properties. The city has said it would proceed with a "quick take" condemnation of the Weinberg properties.
In effect, it appears that the city might actually be giving the property away rather than selling it. Or that would appear to be the case if the cost of demolition equals or exceed the sales amount. And no one thought to cap the demolition costs. In a really intriguing twist, what happens if demolition costs MORE than the purchase price? Does that mean that the city will have to pay the developer to take the property? Oh boy. Still, the best part of this whole thing is that the screwed-up sales agreement is causing a delay. Well, guess how the city justified taking the property away from a wealthy charity in order to develop it. Seriously. Guess.
Yes. Because the charity had taken too long to come up with a development plan.
Are you a lawyer? I suggest you go to Baltimore. There is going to be a lot of work there for you.
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