Shannon's Window: Read the fine print
- March 20, 2015
- / Shannon Nickinson
- / government
If real estate firm CBRE’s “success fee” is news to anyone, it shouldn’t be.
Since at least Sept. 18, that fee — a 4 percent commission to be paid by the lucky contestant who takes on the vacant parcels of the Community Maritime Park — has been in black and white for all to read.
Including the Community Maritime Park board members.
CBRE is a real estate firm hired by the city to market vacant parcels at the Pensacola International Airport, Port of Pensacola and Community Maritime Park. As part of that effort, CBRE published a Request for Proposals (RFP) in September.
It served as a call to all interested and able developers to submit their vision for what could be built on the downtown waterfront redevelopment site that contains the Pensacola Blue Wahoos baseball stadium and a mixed-use development by Beck Properties.
The Request for Proposals says that CBRE shall be paid 4 percent of the overall project value. The fee will be paid by the selected developer. “Overall project value” is defined as the total hard and soft costs of the projects including but not limited to land, infrastructure, construction, architectural and design fees attributed to the project.
Fees will be payable to CBRE within 30 days of execution of a development, joint venture, or any other agreement between the parties.
The fact that folks who ought to have known better are saying they didn’t realize what the RFP said is just a tad disingenuous.
The fact that the real estate company wants to be paid a success fee based on the project development costs of whatever is ultimately built on Ye Olde Community Maritime Park is not really new.
Here it is in the RFP, issued in September:
Here it is mentioned again in a response to that RFP from Andrew Rothfeder, who managed the Studer Community Investments response to the RFP:
To recap, the two responses to the RFP were:
— Studer Community Investments for parcels 3 and 9. Plans for one parcel would build additional baseball-related facilities, the other would have seen a day-care facility built on site.
— MCM-BAP, a Miami-area joint venture between Munilla Construction Management and Bermello, Ajamil and Partners. MCM-BAP is also joined by the Winokur Group in this response as an associate investor.
The MCM-BAP plans include a hotel, boutique housing and retail space on the park property.
At a CMPA meeting on Dec. 17, the discussion among board members made it clear they had little interest in pursuing the Studer offer.
The Studers’ lawyer, Scott Remington, sent a letter on Dec. 18 to Spears and the CMPA’s lawyer, Lisa Minshew, saying his client was withdrawing the response to the RFP based on the tenor of that discussion.
The mystery of why the "success fee" is a mystery may remain so. The man who handled the RFP, Ed Spears, is officially “separated from the city,” according to Chief Operating Officer Tamara Fountain.
Spears, Fountain says, has 21 days to make a final determination about his separation. She declined to elaborate further.
Erik Wortendyke of the city Parks and Recreation Department will assist with ongoing maintenance of the Maritime Park and project management. will provide project management support for the board members, and Mandy Bills will provide administrative support to the board for the time being.
It will be important to know who is supposed to do what when it comes to Spears’ duties, because the green light to move forward on a $65 million proposal to add a hotel, boutique retail and mixed-use space on some of the key remaining parcels is likely to go to Pensacola City Council in April.
On Jan. 28, the CMPA board heard from MCM-BAP about their vision for the vacant parcels on the park property. And they seemed to like what the Miami-based company put forth.
Well enough, at least, to vote to send the MOU in concept, on to the Pensacola City Council for approval.
That will probably take place in April.
Here it is mentioned again in a response to that RFP from Andrew Rothfeder, who managed the Studer Community Investments response to the RFP:
To recap, the two responses to the RFP were:
— Studer Community Investments for parcels 3 and 9. Plans for one parcel would build additional baseball-related facilities, the other would have seen a day-care facility built on site.
— MCM-BAP, a Miami-area joint venture between Munilla Construction Management and Bermello, Ajamil and Partners. MCM-BAP is also joined by the Winokur Group in this response as an associate investor.
The MCM-BAP plans include a hotel, boutique housing and retail space on the park property.
At a CMPA meeting on Dec. 17, the discussion among board members made it clear they had little interest in pursuing the Studer offer.
The Studers’ lawyer, Scott Remington, sent a letter on Dec. 18 to Spears and the CMPA’s lawyer, Lisa Minshew, saying his client was withdrawing the response to the RFP based on the tenor of that discussion.
The mystery of why the "success fee" is a mystery may remain so. The man who handled the RFP, Ed Spears, is officially “separated from the city,” according to Chief Operating Officer Tamara Fountain.
Spears, Fountain says, has 21 days to make a final determination about his separation. She declined to elaborate further.
Erik Wortendyke of the city Parks and Recreation Department will assist with ongoing maintenance of the Maritime Park and project management. will provide project management support for the board members, and Mandy Bills will provide administrative support to the board for the time being.
It will be important to know who is supposed to do what when it comes to Spears’ duties, because the green light to move forward on a $65 million proposal to add a hotel, boutique retail and mixed-use space on some of the key remaining parcels is likely to go to Pensacola City Council in April.
On Jan. 28, the CMPA board heard from MCM-BAP about their vision for the vacant parcels on the park property. And they seemed to like what the Miami-based company put forth.
Well enough, at least, to vote to send the MOU in concept, on to the Pensacola City Council for approval.
That will probably take place in April.
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