Sleiman Slays City for Another $3.7 mil for Landing

[bl8jaxnative]

City loses lawsuit against Sleiman and is ordered to pay $3.7 million more for the Landing properties.  If anyone is counting, it seems to me we are over $20 million for the purchase and demolition at this point.

https://www.jacksonville.com/news/20191218/judge-city-owes-sleiman-firm-37-million-for-landing-parking-area

a) There was no purchase.  The city owned the land.  The city bought out the lease Sleiman had on the property.
b) The demolition cost is $1.25 million.


There is no reason why the city couldn't have bought Sleiman out of the lease and kept The Landing.  Those costs are not one and the same.


The most important part of this is that they city has made a series a terrible decisions in regard to the Landing.  The first was picking up 40% of the cost to build an indoor shopping mall downtown.  Horrible decision in itself.

The other huge thing was instead of calling it a day when it didn't work, they entered into a sweetheart lease deal with Sleiman Properties, one with provisions that officials were well aware they couldn't live up to. 

[thelakelander]

Sleiman came on the scene when he acquired the the buildings and lease agreement from Rouse. COJ didn't have anything to do with that part.

[vicupstate]

There is no reason why the city couldn't have bought Sleiman out of the lease and kept The Landing.  Those costs are not one and the same.

Sleiman owned the building which he bought from Rouse. He had a long term lease on the land underneath the building which also transferred from Rouse. The city couldn't have cancelled the lease without his approval and obviously he would not agree to that without being compensated for the building he was surrendering in the process.

Not sure what your point is.