New offer for Centro Ybor

Two Ybor businessmen who lost out on acquiring the complex last year make a $20.25-million offer.

By JANET ZINK, Times Staff Writer
Published August 30, 2007

TAMPA - A pair of Ybor City property owners have offered to pay $20.25-million to buy Centro Ybor, a troubled entertainment and retail complex owned by a Chicago company.

Alan Kahana and Joseph Capitano tried to buy the property last year, but lost out to the current owners, M&J Wilkow of Chicago, which paid about $16-million for it.

The city holds a nearly $9-million second mortgage on the property that wasn't covered by that sale.

On Wednesday, with the city poised to consider allowing Wilkow to develop a hotel and offices on the site, Kahana and Capitano have tossed a new offer on the table.

"Depending on how the parties split that, this could put a significant amount of money in the city's pocket that they wouldn't otherwise receive," said Robert Warchola, an attorney for the two Ybor City businessmen.

City Attorney David Smith said the offer is worth consideration.

"It makes sense as a deal," he said. "We need to look at it carefully and see if it's something that can work for all the parties. That's not to say it's acceptable as is, but at least it warrants further examination."

Representatives of Wilkow could not be reached for comment late Wednesday, but they indicated this week that they would entertain an offer.

The City Council, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency, is scheduled to vote today on a deal that would give Wilkow the right to develop offices and a hotel on the property.

The agreement would require Wilkow to help the city pay its debt with a $100,000 initial payment; $25,000 a year for six years; $35,000 a year for the next six years; and increasing payments for the following 15 years.

Smith said he still wants the council to vote on that plan.

"What we've got pending doesn't affect anybody's ability to cut a different deal, and avoids slowing the process up unnecessarily," he said.

But Kahana has argued that the city could get a better deal for Centro and said Wednesday that the vote should be delayed so the city can negotiate with Wilkow.

"Once they allow the land use to change, they lose a substantial part of their leverage," he said.

The proposal is the latest twist in the tale of Centro Ybor, which opened in 2000 in hopes that it would jump-start development in Ybor City.

Former Mayor Dick Greco's administration kicked in a $9-million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and a parking garage to make the $50-million project happen.

But Centro faltered, and in 2004, the administration of Mayor Pam Iorio stepped in take over the HUD loan payments for the developers - Sembler Co., Steiner+Associates and BVT.

That's costing taxpayers about $750,000 a year.

Sembler Co. built BayWalk in St. Petersburg, and Steiner+Associates built CocoWalk in Dade County.

Wilkow bought the property in December.

The City Council was set last Thursday to vote on the development agreement with Wilkow. But in response to an off-the-cuff remark by council member Charlie Miranda that the agreement was so poor that he would sell the city's mortgage at half its value, Jacob "Booky" Buchman offered to do just that.

The unexpected offer threw the meeting into confusion as the city and Buchman and his lawyers talked. And the council postponed its vote on Wilkow's development plan and city payment schedule.

Buchman put his $4.1-million offer in writing Tuesday, but Smith deemed it unacceptable, saying it included conditions the city couldn't possibly meet.

Buchman and Capitano are co-owners of Buc-Cap, a company that owns property on Ybor City.

Buchman could not be reached for comment, but Kahana said he didn't know if Buchman would join in the latest offer to buy all of Centro Ybor.

Janet Zink can be reached at jzink@sptimes.com or 813 226-3401.

[Last modified August 30, 2007, 01:41:23]