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Officials assure that this is the first step in the process and that things can be turned around. At issue is about 20 percent of the project's money.
By JAMES HARPER
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 5, 2000
ST. PETERSBURG -- A key piece of financing for the redevelopment of Jordan Park was "rejected" by a state housing agency this week, raising new doubts about the ability of the St. Petersburg Housing Authority to finish the project as planned.
In preliminary rankings, the Jordan Park plan received the lowest score among five Florida projects competing for federal tax credits through the Florida Housing Finance Corp.
The tax credits are responsible for about 20 percent of the money needed to rebuild Jordan Park.
Authority representatives quickly pointed out that they can raise their score through a lengthy appeals process.
They also said the automatic rejection was because of a transmission error in part of their application, which was faxed to the state agency in Tallahassee. That can be fixed easily, they said.
The other four developers, including a similar project for the Tampa Housing Authority that also was rejected, can try to improve their scores as well. It is unclear how the final rankings will end up.
"You have to understand the process and wait and see," said Judith Siegel, president of the Landex Corp., part of the private development group the authority chose last year to tear down, rebuild, own and manage the new Jordan Park.
"We're very confident," she said. "I understand people can be skeptical. We appreciate their concerns because we understand how important this project is. But we know what we're doing."
But attorney Jonathan Alpert, who urged a federal judge Wednesday to halt the demolition at least temporarily until questions about the project can be answered, said this latest news only strengthened his case.
"Clearly this is information we need to bring to the attention of the judge, because a major component piece and reason for proceeding with demolition would appear to no longer exist," Alpert said.
"Also it would appear that a Florida governmental agency has determined, as have the residents of Jordan Park, that the St. Petersburg Housing Authority is not to be trusted. The problem is, the project was not well-conceived to begin with, because once they switched from restoration and repair to demolition and destruction, the entire project became a hit or miss type of thing."
Final word on the tax credits is not expected until September.
But the authority already has begun tearing down the old Jordan Park. At mid-week, 30 of the 54 masonry apartment buildings had been flattened.
Siegel said she did not want to speculate on what would happen to Jordan Park if the tax credits fall through.
Authority leaders didn't know about the preliminary rankings until a Times reporter called them late Thursday afternoon, according to spokeswoman Julie Williamson.
Executive director Darrell J. Irions, who gets six weeks of vacation a year, was on vacation and could not be reached for comment. Deputy executive director Mike Marshall, who is directly responsible for the Jordan Park project, referred questions to Rusty Sibley, one of the private consultants the authority has hired to manage the project.
Sibley, who has worked closely with the developers, said he wasn't worried about the preliminary rankings. He said he has another project under construction in Tampa that was rejected during the first round of last year's rankings.
Authority board member Paul Yingst said he too was not worried, after Sibley assured him the low ranking could be fixed on appeal.
Yingst said he did not know what would happen if the tax credits fell through.
"I really haven't looked at it from that standpoint," he said. Through 18 months of planning, the assumption has been "that we have to get them," he said.
Other board members did not return calls.
The importance of the tax credits was one reason the authority chose the partnership led by Landex, instead of another developer that promised to share more its earnings with local non-profit community development groups.
Irions had warned his board members that they could not afford to gamble on a less experienced developer, who might not be as good at applying for tax credits. A developer resells the credits to private investors, who use them to reduce their federal tax bills over 10 years.
That transaction is expected to contribute just under $12-million to Jordan Park, which overall will cost about $50-million.
The Jordan Park developer has applied for almost half of the $3-million in annual tax credits that the state housing agency has available this year. The total requested by all five applicants is about $4.9-million.