Planning board takes on Founders Landing’s future

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MARQUETTE - The Marquette City Planning Commission will take on Founders Landing at a special meeting on Wednesday.

The commission meets at 6 p.m. in commission chambers at city hall.

The planning commission will decide the next step for the three-parcel tract of land on Lake Superior. City Planner/Zoning Administrator Dennis Stachewicz Jr. said the commission has to decide which represents the best benefit to the city: accepting the highest price offer for the land, or advancing city goals by issuing requests for proposals for the property.

"If it's determined that there are other benefits besides the highest price, then the planning commission has an RFP prepared and it goes to the Marquette City Commission," Stachewicz said. "If (the city commission) wants to concur with the planning commission, it must be a unanimous vote of people present to authorize the taking of proposals."

If the city commission concurred, Stachewicz said the planning commission would then review the proposals that came in and would recommend to the city which proposed development best advanced city goals.

The sale of Founders Landing has been delayed since city officials and members of the developer The Urban Project signed a purchase agreement for all three parcels on Sept. 6. The next day, officials with The Urban Project told City Manager Judy Akkala that there were soil problems with the middle parcel.

After both sides were unable to reach a compromise on remediation costs, The Urban Project terminated the entire purchase agreement in December. In January, Akkala recommended the city create another solicitation review committee to find a new developer, but the city commission voted to resume negotiations with The Urban Project.

Over the next few months, negotiations continued but the scope of the project changed when the city commission voted to sell just the middle parcel to The Urban Project.

In May the city commission rejected The Urban Project's offer of $825,000 for the middle site and voted to cease negotiations. In addition, the commission urged The Landing Development Group, which proposed to pay $875,000 for the middle parcel, to begin its own negotiations with the city.

The Landing Development Group's offer was rejected on July 14 when Commissioner Joe Lavey voted against it.

A unanimous vote was required because the Landing Development Group did not put in a bid for the middle parcel, instead requesting to purchase it from the city. If a person or developer asks the city to buy a property that has not gone out for bids, the city charter stipulates that the final decision to sell the property must be unanimous. It wasn't, so the deal fell through.