Bostwick rejects mystery offer to buy historic Downtown building

[thelakelander]

A "qualified buyer" is in talks to acquire the Bostwick Building, the building with a jaguar painted on its boarded-up windows in Downtown Jacksonville, but one of the co-owners said he’s not interested in the offer that was put before him.

full article: http://www.bizjournals.com/jacksonville/news/2013/01/09/mystery-buyer-emerges-for-bostwick.html

[thelakelander]

The mystery buyer is Preston Haskell.

reston Haskell has made an offer to buy Jacksonville’s historic Bostwick building â€" the jaguar-spotted downtown landmark â€" but the property owners have rejected the offer as too low.

Haskell has offered to pay up to $150,000 for the property, the equivalent of $40 a square foot for the 3,825-square-foot parcel of land. The owners, Val and Karl Bostwick, have asked for $325,000 in the past but were unable to find any buyers.

The city has appraised the land and building as being worth $351,000 with the land itself â€" if the building were to be demolished â€" as worth $76,500, or $20 a square foot. Demolition would cost about $40,000, according to the owners’ permit application.

http://m.jacksonville.com/news/premium-news/2013-01-09/story/haskell-bids-jacksonvilles-historic-bostwick-building

[bornnative]

The Bostwicks have had an offer for that amount on the table since at least last April.

[thelakelander]

Imo, they aren't really interested in selling it, unless someone pays them more than what it's really worth. In fact, I'd say their  position is one that has largely kept downtown back.

[Tacachale]

Sad but unsurprising.

[bornnative]

They are.  They're currently incurring $100/day, and have been since March.  They only started the process to finally attempt a permitted demolition (vs by neglect) when the city notified them that they would not grant any further variances or delays and commenced the rolling fine.  Their argument in attempting to get the demo permit is that they don't have the cash to pay the fines or redevelop.

[strider]

Can it be that the tax benefits of "losing" the building are more important that the cash? I don't really see how though.  Do they really think the empty lot will be worth much more than $220,000 someday realtively soon? (the value of the deal - 150K plus fines and demo cost savings).

While rolling fines were often neotiated away in the past, I have been hearing a different story lately so they may indeed matter.  I wonder if the brothers are sure they won't have to pay them if the building is gone.  They, of course, won't accrue anymore, but the existing ones may be forever attached to the property, regardless of what they may have verbally been told.

It is interesting that the owners can come up with $40K to demo but couldn't come up with the then much smaller amount to fix the roof, which would have prevented all of this from happening to begin with.  And kept the building in a state in which someone may have paid what they wanted.

[Mathew1056]

Imo, they aren't really interested in selling it, unless someone pays them more than what it's really worth. In fact, I'd say their  position is one that has largely kept downtown back.

I fully agree. It seems that in any area such as downtown or Main Street you find property held by investors waiting for the market to take off. The only problem is that these investors sit on many of the key properties. When are we going to stop treating property like a savings account?

[ubben]

The Bostwicks have just ruined their name in this city.

[urbaknight]

Are the Bostwics from here. If so, that would explain a lot.

[acme54321]

Their name is cast into the side of a 100 year old building...  so I'd say yes LOL

[sheclown]

The Bostwicks have just ruined their name in this city.

yes, I agree.  I think we all understand how you can get into a jam.  Maybe we can understand why you let your building deteriorate.  But to petition to have it demolished when a new owner is willing and capable to bring it to life?

Disgraceful.

[JeffreyS]

How should we bring public pressure to bear on them?

[sheclown]

On Jan 15th at LUZ.

[WmNussbaum]

I have never seen a group like this one, which has fine tuned an ability to play with the money of others.