JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A deal years in the making has fallen apart, putting Duval County Public Schools back at square one in its effort to sell its Riverfront headquarters.<\/p>\n
The developer claims key financial obligations tied to the property were not clearly disclosed during sale negotiations.<\/p>\n
For nearly 20 years, Duval County Public Schools has tried to sell its headquarters, promising to turn the prime riverfront property into millions of dollars for school repairs.<\/p>\n
Last November, in a split 4\u20133 vote, the School Board approved a $17.2 million sale to Chase Properties. The plan called for a mixed-use development including apartments, condominiums and a hotel. In turn, the district planned to move its administrative offices to a renovated building in Baymeadows for about $13.6 million.<\/p>\n
This week, however, Chase Properties notified the district that it intends to terminate the agreement.<\/p>\n
[DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n At the center of the dispute is what\u2019s known as a Community Development District, or CDD, encumbrance. A spokesperson for Chase Properties, Inc. told Action News Jax:<\/p>\n \u201cIt was never disclosed in any of three different Invitations to Negotiate nor in either of the two appraisals. It was also not properly disclosed in the Purchase and Sale Agreement and was not discovered until the Title Report was received. This issue would have never happened if the school board had ordered a title policy before attempting to sell the property.\u201d <\/p>\n We asked DCPS if it had a response to Chase Properties\u2019 statement about the failure to disclose the financial obligations linked to the property, and we received this statement Friday morning:<\/p>\n \u201cDuval County Public Schools confirms that the potential Community Development District (CDD) encumbrance was disclosed in the purchase and sale agreement for 1701 Prudential Drive. Buyers were advised to contact the county property appraiser or the CDD for details, and due diligence materials also included CDD information.<\/p>\n \u201cNo fixed or exact dollar amount for the CDD encumbrance was specified in the contract or disclosure materials, as these are non-ad valorem special assessments determined by multiple factors\u2014including infrastructure financing needs, bond terms, annual operations and maintenance budgets, property allocation methods, and future district changes, rather than a predetermined sum.”<\/p>\n We did find contract language the Duval School Board approved on November 4. It states, the change in ownership could result in \u201chigher property taxes or the levying of assessments against the property, or portions thereof, by the CDD.\u201d<\/p>\n In a letter to the School Board, Superintendent Dr. Christopher Bernier confirmed that Chase intends to terminate the approved contract. He also wrote that, consistent with board guidance to avoid holding two properties at the same time, the district has exercised its option to terminate its contract to purchase the Baymeadows headquarters site.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Some parents say they are relieved the deal is off.<\/p>\n Yasmina White, a Duval County Public Schools parent who has spoken out against the move, said she believes the decision is in taxpayers\u2019 best interest.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were several red flags that don\u2019t align in the best benefit of taxpayers. So this is great news,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n White said she has advocated against the move for months.<\/p>\n \u201cI am happy this has fallen through\u2026 So seeing this come about is exactly what our community needs, and exactly what DCPS parents wanted to happen,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n For now, the district remains in its downtown headquarters, with no clear timeline for what comes next.<\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 A deal years in the making has fallen apart, putting Duval County Public Schools back…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,1040,74557,74558,74559,1038,48092,28,348,116,351,118,117,349,350,346,345],"class_list":{"0":"post-154740","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-action-news-jax","9":"tag-cbs47","10":"tag-dcps","11":"tag-dcps-headquarters","12":"tag-dcps-hq","13":"tag-dcps-riverfront","14":"tag-duval-county-public-schools","15":"tag-duval-county-schools","16":"tag-florida","17":"tag-fox30","18":"tag-jacksonville","19":"tag-jacksonville-fl","20":"tag-jacksonville-headlines","21":"tag-jacksonville-news","22":"tag-northeast-florida","23":"tag-southeast-georgia","24":"tag-wfox","25":"tag-wjax"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}