By Michele Leivas
Due diligence could take a year, cost up to $950,000
The Downtown Investment Authority plans to spend up to a year conducting due diligence on the city-owned riverfront East Landing site before considering its future development.
DIA Director of Operations Guy Parola informed the board it could cost up to $950,000 and take up to a year to conduct the necessary due diligence, including market and land use analyses after private developer Cross Regions Group expressed interest in building a 720-foot skyscraper on the site. The land use analysis would include title investigation and subsurface utility engineering reports to assess what’s underneath the site.
“We’re not going to rely on the as-builts and what we can discover from the paperwork, we’re also going to do the physical, or soft dig utility locate information,” Parola said.
Doing this subsurface investigation, Parola said, will help identify any underground issues or utilities – such as JEA sewer pipes – that might require relocation or other attention before development could occur.
Optimal use
Another option would involve determining the parcel’s “optimal use,” which considers a larger picture that could involve multiple parcels and their impacts on one another.
“You are looking at the use of a particular parcel for the benefits to that parcel, but also for the benefits and impact to adjacent parcels on achieving your overall long-term goals as part of your plan,” Downtown Investment Authority CEO Lori Boyer said.
Determining the parcel’s optimal use would require more time because it is an analysis that involves multiple parcels. The cost for this optimal use report would range from $50,000 to $100,000 and take six months to complete for one property only, or $250,000 and nine months to complete for multiple parcels, including private development.
Though it would take longer if these analyses were not done concurrently, Boyer said her preference would be to determine the parcel’s optimal use first, since that report’s findings could save the city money should it render some of those subsurface relocations unnecessary.