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Texas Developer Backs Out Of $7.6 Million ECUA Deal
August 1, 2013
A possible $7.6 million deal is dead between a Texas developer and ECUA for the former Main Street Wastewater Treatment Plant plant.
Aaron Wiese, president of Houston-based HT Land Co., offered the cash for the 19-acre property. The ECUA board came back with a counteroffer for $7.6 million with a few strings attached — Wiese would be required to front a $50,000 non-refundable payment. He was given three days to respond.
One Wednesday, Wiese “informed ECUA that he will not sign the proposed contract for purchase of ECUA’s Main Street property in downtown Pensacola. There is no longer an offer on the
table,” ECUA Board Chairman Larry Walker said Wednesday night. “ECUA will proceed to contract with the firm of NAI Halford Pensacola to market the property.”
Comments
5 Responses to “Texas Developer Backs Out Of $7.6 Million ECUA Deal”
Good observations here and really no “right” or “wrong” to be determined it’s just another government business deal that never got off the ground.
Too bad Mr. Studer did not purchase that property for his office building that is going up on the Maritime Park site. Unfortunately, no matter how “area appropriate” he tries to make it look it will still block the view of his ball stadium. Will admit that I did not care for a ball park there but honestly it does look nice and so far has had good public access. To me, and I know it doesn’t matter spit, it is somewhat offensive that he has chosen to put a building in front of the place.
No matter what, please officials let’s get the old stinky property back on the tax rolls so the county can have some income from it.
Jim, you may well be right. Part of my negative thought is that it may be a while before we know who was right. At the moment, and continuing my “bird in hand, bird in bush” theme, I feel as if we are now on something of a snipe hunt and may be holding an empty bag for quite a while. I hope that you are right and I am wrong. See you at Fran’s.
Thanks for the up date Mr Walker. I still feel that the old saying applies here– money talks BS walks. See you for coffee some time.
My hunch is that Mr. Wiese walked away not because of the $50,000, but because of the adverse publicity about DUIs and so forth. No one at ECUA ever said that Mr. Wiese was a “big player”; I think it was some PNJ quotes of Houston sources that suggested that. At ECUA, there was speculation that Mr Wiese was merely a buyer for other people who actually had the $7.6 million.
Whatever Mr. Wiese was or was not–and Jim in Molino may have seen the matter most clearly–it no longer matters. We start over, using a previously selected local broker, NAI Halford, to market the property. ECUA now can only sit back and hope that Halford can land an equally large sale price for us and in the not-too-distant future. We had a bird in the hand that offered some prospect of a sale at a good price for ECUA and its customers: now, we wait, hoping that another equally plump bird will be lured out of the bush by NAI Halford, and quickly.
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I was surprised that ECUA had not checked the back ground on Mr Wiese when this first started. An on line check of his “company” and a couple of phone calls showed he was not the big player that some on the board member wanted him to be. I see when he was told he had to front $50,000 non refundable the deal fell apart. My information was passed on to two members of the board. I well understand 7.6 would help all of us–but my personal feeling to tie up the property is not a good move for us.