City gets sweeter land deal

Winter Park’s State Office Building may soon be demolished for another office building after the City Commission voted 3-2 to swap properties with Progress Point LLC, which owns a building on Orange Avenue.

But that decision came after contention on the dais that involved a slew of amendments to the land swap being shot down by narrow margins before the Commission agreed to go forward with the city staff’s recommendations for the deal.

Economic Development Director Dori DeBord said that the potential for the State Office Building site was high and could provide an economic boon to the area.

“We would have fairly immediately the development of an underutilized parcel in an office corridor,” she said. “We have the potential of having a new corporate headquarters in that parcel. We would be seeing between 300 and possibly 400 employees in that area.”

After more than four hours of discussion, none of the amendments passed, but the exchange agreement passed on its first reading, with Commissioners Carolyn Cooper and Tom McMacken dissenting. It’s expected to come up for a second reading at the next Commission meeting on Nov. 28.

Leveling the appraisal

It was the staff that had negotiated a deal with Progress Point in the past month, attempting to close the gap between appraised values of the two properties in order to seal a deal.

The most recent appraisal, conducted by Winter Springs’ Meridian Appraisal Group, closed a gap in value that had previously been more than $1.5 million wide. The State Office Building was appraised at $4.575 million, and the Progress Point property, at 1150 N. Orange Ave., was valued at $4.4 million.

To close the gap, staff negotiated with Progress Point to pay for demolition of the State Office Building, a $343,000 half-acre conservation easement along Morse Boulevard, and a CRA contribution valued at $300,000 over 14 years.

The result of that agreement, staff said, was a net value of $743,000 the city would gain in the deal.

Amendments fail

Despite the seemingly improved deal compared to the last time the Commission saw it, there was still contention about some details that could have led to a building being demolished immediately, and the city being able to take back its property if Progress Point failed to build quickly enough.

Amendments were proposed that would require a reverter clause that would allow the city to take its property back, and would require the city to immediately demolish the building formerly owned by Progress Point.

Commissioner Steven Leary said that those amendments only slowed the process down.

“We’re going backwards on this stuff,” Leary said. “We’re talking about a reverter clause. We’re talking about demo-ing a building. To continue to hang this thing up on things that have been discussed between staff and the counter party … it’s not worth holding this thing up over $100,000.

“They have not asked to lessen the deal at all, and we’re asking for more.”

Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel said that though she was wary of demolishing a usable building, she thought the current Progress Point building, which the company admitted had 600 square feet of property contaminated by arsenic, was uninhabitable.

“I would certainly not be in favor of demolishing something that someone thinks they could use later,” Sprinkel said. “I just can’t for the life of me think anybody wants to be in that building, after driving by it so many times, because it just doesn’t look habitable.”

City Attorney Larry Brown said that a perfect deal would be difficult to come by.

“This is not an unusual situation where a Commission is presented with an agreement that’s been heavily negotiated by staff,” he said. “It’s not going to be a perfect agreement.”