JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Jacksonville City Council passed an emergency resolution that will encourage the mayor’s office to come to an agreement with a potential new owner of the Laura Street Trio.
The property is currently owned by Steve Atkins and the Southeast Development Group, but Paul Bertozzi and Live Oak Contracting said they are ready to buy the property that is swamped with $800,000 in city code violation fines and liens.
That prompted the city to bring a foreclosure lawsuit.
Councilman Kevin Carrico introduced emergency legislation at Tuesday’s meeting to waive the fine and get a deal moving forward.
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Carrico said seeing the property’s advancement was important to him.
“I’ve said it many times this property is really the linchpin of the business district of downtown when you come downtown it’s the corner of Laura Street in Bay Street,” Carrico said. “It’s right there for everyone to see it’s nice or it could open a lot of things [...] there’s just a lot of potential to really ignite this central business district.”
But the mayor’s office felt it went too far into their realm of responsibility.
“They had an ordinance that dictated how we do our function,” chief of staff Mike Weinstein said. “That’s not appropriate we believe.”
Weinstein even suggested at a committee meeting on Monday that the mayor could decide to veto a bill if passed.
The solution the council came to on Tuesday was a resolution asking the mayor’s office to get a deal to allow Live Oak to take over the property.
“We’re under a timeframe,” Bertozzi said. “We wanna close by the end of the year to get this moving. There’s opportunity now obviously to get this done and I think it’s just a critical time to move this forward.”
Bertozzi and the mayor’s office will now negotiate the terms of a deal to push back on the foreclosure lawsuit so that a deal can be done and improvements can be made.
Weinstein said that the deal would include markers and deadlines for development plans.
“We’ve been here a number of times over the last 10-12 years,” he said, “And really actively over the last seven. The only reason we’re stepping back a little bit from pushing on the forfeiture is the understanding they will have to close by the end of the year so a little bit of time to do that and it’ll be a totally different proposal and totally different members on the development side.”
The resolution passed 17-2 with council members Rory Diamond and Terrance Freeman voting against the resolution.
Council members asked that all parties report back with a deal by Dec. 6.