FORT WALTON BEACH — It could be do or die for the Landmark Center on Tuesday evening.
Representatives from Ft. Walton Development partners will return to City Hall for a special meeting of the Fort Walton Beach City Council at 5 p.m. to discuss plans for a revised development agreement. The meeting comes exactly three months from when the council rejected the last proposal.
Ft. Walton Development Partners have come up with a new plan that would allow them to move forward with the project while reducing the city’s investment.
“The developers wanted this to happen, so it’s kind of their show to go up there and present to council what they’re asking for,” City Manager Michael Beedie said. “What (the city staff is) looking for from council is direction.
“(The) council is either going to say ‘submit your application and agreement and we’ll run it through the process’ or they could say they are not interested in doing any agreement at all,” Beedie added.
The Landmark Center is a 122,000-square-foot mixed-use project proposed for the corner of Perry Avenue and U.S. Highway 98 downtown. It would boast 90 hotel rooms, 15 corporate apartments, a swimming pool, 31,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space, and a 343-space parking garage.
The project was announced in 2006 as a mixed-use development that would combine retail, office and residential space.
Under the latest proposal, Ft. Walton Development Partners will ask the city to vacate a piece of city-owned land next to the development that will be used to build the parking garage, offer about $900,000 in Community Redevelopment Agency grants and return tax increment financing dollars the project would generate to offset the cost of the parking garage.
The city’s only initial investment in the project would be the land, which has an estimated value of $50,000 but still would have to be appraised, Beedie said. The grant money would be paid to the developers after the project is completed to reimburse some of the cost from streetscape improvements.
The current property taxes paid on the private, vacant Landmark property is about $10,500. The tax increment financing portion of the proposed agreement would return all additional tax dollars generated by the construction to the developers to offset the cost of building the parking garage. The TIF would sunset in 2026 when the CRA also sunsets.
“We’re not getting the TIF revenue now because nothing is on the property,” Beedie said. “That revenue is only generated if that development happens. If that property stays vacant, we don’t get that money, anyways. That is not coming out of money we already have.”
In September, the City Council denied an offer that also included a $1.2 million request to fund infrastructure improvements.
The City Council voted last month to approve Ft. Walton Development Partners’ request to make another presentation Tuesday.
“I believe that if council says no on Tuesday night, (Ft. Walton Development Partners is) either going to have to go back to the drawing board and downsize the project in order to fit it all on their property or figure out something else to do with that property,” Beedie said.
WANT TO ATTEND?
Developers of the Landmark Center will meet with the Fort Walton Beach City Council at 5 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall.
Contact Daily News Business Editor Dusty Ricketts at 850-315-4448 or dricketts@nwfdailynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @DustyRnwfdn.