By REID TUCKER
It was a close vote, but the DeFuniak Springs City Hall property is back up for sale.
The City Council was narrowly in favor of counter-offering $2.75 million to the Alabama-based T Investments, LLC, which made an introductory offer of $2.45 million for the 4.2-acre plot containing City Hall. According to the purchase contract provided by T Investments, the offer to buy the property would have been off the table after Oct. 31.
This comes as only the most recent episode since almost a year ago, when the city first went the rounds with two business developers offering to buy the property. Alabama-based Developer’s Realty first made the offer of $2.4 million last November, but the City Council countered with $3.2 million, and Atlanta’s Crim Development came back a month later, proposing to purchase the property for just about $200,000 under the Council’s previous counter-offer. The Council voted to move ahead with the sale and authorized the mayor to execute the contract, but the deal fell through when Crim backed out after deciding it would be cost-prohibitive to remedy the property’s topographical issues, which company engineers estimated would run $500,000 or more.
Even though the new offer to buy the City Hall property does not require the city to pay out for the aforementioned utilities relocation or other construction, Councilmen Ron Kelley and Henry Ennis cast nay votes on the motion to make the counter offer.
Kelley made known his objections to the sale of the property in a written statement, but the crux of his argument rested on a few salient points. He contended that the Friday deadline to make a decision was not enough time for the Council to reach an informed decision and furthermore that the public had not been given enough time or information to give its input on the matter either. Additionally, Kelley said the sale of land to a developer looking to put in a CVS Pharmacy location, especially at City Hall, which the city was not actively trying to sell, and when other properties were available, could have a detrimental effect on locally owned pharmacies nearby.
“If CVS wants to open a store in DeFuniak Springs, there are many excellent properties available, and they are welcome to do so – as is any company that meets our code and permitting requirements,” Kelley said. “But for the City Council to unnecessarily sell [the City Hall] property to a company that we know is probably going to drive one or more of our local companies out of business, means that we are not only endorsing that action, we are actively enabling it.
“This may be someone’s idea of economic development, but it certainly is not mine. I do not believe that the citizens who voted us into office did that so that we could feather our own nest, while driving local business out of business.”
Kelley said the sale of one City Hall would mean building a new one – a matter of a few million dollars that also came up when discussing the former offers to buy the property. That issue should be a part of a long-term strategic plan as frequently called for by Councilman Mac Carpenter, Kelley said. For his part, Carpenter acknowledged the need for a strategic plan, be he said the potential sale of the City Hall property provided the city with an opportunity to get into a new facility and inject some much-needed public development in the downtown historic district.
“This is an opportunity and we need to give it some serious consideration or the citizens of the DeFuniak Springs are going to run us out of town on a rail come election time,” Carpenter said. “This is a serious opportunity and we need to give it serious consideration.”
Councilman Mac Work, who also voted in favor of the motion to make the counter-offer, lightened the mood with his own observation about the possible upshot of bringing in another national chain.
“Once you get some of these major retailers coming in, it starts domino-ing,” Work said. “You’ll get more and more and more. You might finally get a Cracker Barrel.”
If T Investments agrees to the city’s counter-offer, it will have a 120-day review period in which to finalize the deal.
In other meeting news, the Friends of Army Aviation – Ozark donated a $500 check to the city along with a letter of appreciation for the cooperation and support DeFuniak Springs has given the military education group. Friends of Army Aviation performed a flyover at last year’s Veterans Day program and had a major presence at the Marvel of Flight 2014, and will once again offer helicopter rides this Veterans Day. However, the City Council voted unanimously to return that money to the group, as a show of goodwill and to help the Friends of Army Aviation in pursuing its goal of providing free rides to veterans.
