It may be getting down to crunch time in the county government’s effort to acquire a seven-story commercial building in the Courthouse area for use as staff offices and a year-round homeless-services center.
County Board Chairman Mary Hynes on Jan. 21 said the county government had made a final offer to the owner of the building, and expected to hear back in the “next few days.” When queried a few days later, both sides declined to shed light on the status of negotiations.
“Brookfield has no comment at this time,” said Andrew Willis, senior vice president of communications and media for Canada-based Brookfield Asset Management, which owns the building at 2020 14th Street North that county officials covet.
County officials have made a number of offers to the building’s owner, but have so far been rebuffed. Officials have taken the highly unusual step of publicly threatening to use their power of eminent domain to acquire the building, whose value was pegged by an appraiser at $25 million.
Mary Curtius, a spokesman for the county government, also declined to comment on the status of negotiations.
County officials in November announced their plan to acquire the building, using part of it as a year-round center for the homeless and the remainder of the space to relocate staff from a nearby office building, which would then be torn down.
Some residents of the Courthouse area have gone ballistic both about the proposal and how it has been rushed through by county officials. Several elected officials privately have derided the county effort, but have declined to take it on publicly.
County officials may be playing a game of beat the clock, as the General Assembly is likely to send to voters a constitutional amendment that, if approved, would make it more complicated and potentially much more expensive for local governments to use their powers of eminent domain to acquire property. If approved by the legislature, that measure would go to state voters in November.
anonymous1 posted at 8:36 pm on Wed, Jan 25, 2012.
I'm with the Green Party on this and I plan to vote for Audrey Clement on this issue alone. The most important thing right now is to keep the present homeless shelter open beyond April 1st while converting the shelter and obsolete sheltering concept into homelessness prevention and treatment in a state-of-the-art and cost-effective facility.