FORT PIERCE – The Fort Pierce City Commission decided Monday to give King’s Landing plans another look at a special meeting Sept. 14. And while commissioners have agreed to give developers an additional 180 days to attempt to fill a $15 million funding gap, they have said that money won’t come from local taxpayers.

Development partner Live Oak Holdings Group LLC, of Jacksonville, will get until early 2027, to see if it can garner the $15 million shortfall from “friends and family” investors who may not demand the 18-22 percent return commanded by typical hotel financiers.

But continued work to salvage the mixed-use King’s Landing development that has floundered over the past five years was not universally embraced by city leaders Monday night.

Commissioner Chris Dzadovsky said he was “not willing to go one step further,” calling for the city to “cut bait and move on” with the downtown waterfront development.

Dzadovsky suggested developers already have defaulted on their timelines for financing and getting buildings up.

Now, he claimed, those investors want to save the proposed Marriott hotel portion of the project that’s a linchpin for the remaining housing, office, retail and restaurant facets.

However, Commissioner Michael Broderick argued that a 180-day extension to find the remaining $15 million capital was “a responsible ask.” suggesting that pulling the plug now could result in five years of costly litigation for the city to reclaim the land currently owned by a private developer, plus a 10-year delay in any development of the former H.D. King Power Plant site.

Paul Bertozzi, Live Oak president and chief executive officer, said Monday he’s already begun contacting “third tier” potential investors.

“A hotel should not fail in this market in this location,” said Bertozzi.

Broderick said he believes there also may be a “pool of local money that could be interested as well.”

Broderick suggested King’s Landing original developers may have known they could fall short of meeting their capital requirements, but Bertozzi said the gap was created as a $50 million hotel project ballooned over time to more than $60 million.

Mainsail Lodging and Development, the primary force behind the proposed downtown hotel, has already missed at least three deadlines in contracts with the city, including a requirement to have the hotel’s financing “fully and finally closed” by July 15.

The financing gap that threatens the project first became public in July when commissioners met as the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency (FPRA) board. Live Oak officials said they were surprised to first learn a shortfall existed in April.

So far, Live Oak has been the only member of the development group that has appeared before the city commission to answer questions. Commissioners said Monday they want “the whole team” to be present Sept. 14 to discuss whether the project has a future.

If commissioners decide Sept. 14 to keep the current King’s Landing deal on life support a bit longer, they will still have to act Sept. 15 as the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency to approve a fourth amendment to the original contract.

The city has been embroiled in a series of questionable real estate deals involving city-owned land. Fort Pierce is facing state environmental fines for unpermitted docks added at Little Jim Bait and Tackle by the tenant that leases the site from the city. And the city is owed more than $200,000 in delinquent rent and property taxes for land it leased to a private company for Crabby’s restaurant downtown.

A lease for vacant land on Avenue D involving two then-city employees resulted in a former city manager facing trial on charges of bid tampering and official misconduct and the city leased the former Means Court building to a non-profit, only to have the building shuttered shortly after it opened due to building code violations that could take $2 million to fix.