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YMCA has back-up buyer for downtown
By JON WILSON © St. Petersburg Times, published November 12, 2000 ST. PETERSBURG -- Selling its downtown building is a big part of the YMCA's money-raising campaign as it develops a new center in the Central Plaza neighborhood. So although developer Grady Pridgen said in June he is buying the 1927-vintage building, YMCA board chairman Bill Stover said last week a back-up contract with an undisclosed buyer is in the works. Pridgen said he is still in the picture as a buyer, but that he is willing to bow out in favor of the back-up buyer. Neither Stover nor Pridgen are ready to reveal who that might be. "Basically, Bill contacted me and told me they had a better opportunity," Pridgen said. "In so many words, the Y was asking me to step aside for this opportunity," he said. Stover insisted Friday that Pridgen has not been asked to step aside. "That is not true," Stover said. "I am waiting for a back-up contract I don't have," he said. "Without that back-up contract, it's (Pridgen's). . . . But I don't have a completed contract from Grady." Pridgen, a business park guru who has developed extensively in the Gateway area in far north St. Petersburg, in June offered $845,000 to buy the YMCA, about $4,000 below the asking price. The closing on that deal was tentatively scheduled for October 2001, when the YMCA's new headquarters is expected to be completed. "I thought I had the obligation morally and ethically to tell Grady (about a back-up buyer)," Stover said. He said that if the new buyer doesn't produce a contract this week, he will inform Pridgen. "I'm waiting for the check and the signed contract from Grady so I can sign it . . . and send it back," Stover said. "I'm just upset that I haven't got a performance from one party or the other." Earlier in the week, Stover said the the sale of the downtown building is important to the YMCA's continuing capital campaign, which has so far raised about $8.8-million. Pridgen said in June he planned to turn the YMCA into a 12-unit condominium complex, with each unit being about 1,800 square feet and priced in the $250,000 range. Pridgen bought another historically significant downtown building earlier this year -- the First Congregational Church and its parish hall on Fourth Street N and Second Avenue. Plans call for the property to be converted into a restaurant, offices, a townhouse and a studio for Pridgen's wife, who is an artist. That project is going well, he said. The YMCA broke ground for its new, $11-million building this past summer, and the foundation for the 54,000-square-foot facility has been laid. "We are absolutely on schedule," Stover said. The new headquarters is being built on a lot bounded by First and Third avenues S, between 34th and 31st streets. It will include a 25-yard swimming pool, a traditional gym, a rock-climbing wall, an aerobics room, a health and wellness center, babysitting facilities and community rooms. Even though its downtown building will be sold, the YMCA will maintain a fitness center downtown, Stover said. A location has not been determined.
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