Three weeks after Clearpath Services founder Randy Lloyd publicly revealed the development group’s financial partner had withdrawn from the Three Corners project, Vero Beach officials said they still didn’t know if he had found a replacement.
“If he has, he hasn’t told us,” Peter Polk, the city’s project manager, said Monday.
Lloyd, who previously said Westminster Capital dropped out of the Indiana-based group only two weeks before the initial meeting of the city’s Three Corners Evaluation Committee on March 4, did not respond to text and voice messages left by Vero Beach 32963 last week.
But he is expected to be back in town on Monday, when the evaluation committee is scheduled to conduct separate, face-to-face interviews with Clearpath and The Blue at Vero Beach – the two development groups that submitted proposals in December.
Even without a financial partner, however, the committee evaluating the two proposals overwhelmingly chose Clearpath’s more comprehensive and $250 million plan.
That’s how much the committee members preferred Clearpath’s proposal – and how little they were impressed by the plan submitted by The Blue, which is a spinoff of the SuDa partnership that was selected by the council last year, only to be disqualified for violating the terms of the city’s Request For Proposals.
While SuDa Investments remains a partner, The Blue group is now fronted by Madison Marquette, a highly respected real-estate services firm based in Washington, D.C.
Committee members, however, were disappointed and even critical of The Blue’s proposal, which they said was incomplete and lacking in detail.
Jeb Bittner, a committee member who chairs the city’s Planning & Zoning Board, said it was “hard to compare” the proposals because Clearpath’s was fully fleshed out and The Blue’s submission was “almost skeletal.”
Given the problems that have surfaced with both submissions, Polk raised the possibility that Clearpath and The Blue might consider joining forces to create a stronger overall partnership.
“I’ve been involved in projects in some places where two teams decide to join merge, or at least reconfigure their makeup, in some way,” Polke said. “We’re not taking the lead on this, and I don’t know if those kinds of conversations are taking place, but I wouldn’t be disappointed if they were.”
If no such discussions are occurring, and Lloyd hasn’t yet found a new financial partner, the committee might have little choice but to recommend the City Council choose the The Blue’s $195 million proposal – especially if the group presents a more-detailed plan.
Madison Marquette appears to have the funding it needs to launch the Three Corners project.
However, it’s possible committee members, who were so enthralled with Clearpath’s plan, could choose to stay with Lloyd’s partnership – with a stipulation that the city cannot begin negotiations until the group demonstrates it has the wherewithal to successfully finance the project.
In November 2022, nearly 80 percent of Vero Beach voters approved a referendum to develop the norther 17 acres of the Three Corners site – the property that currently contains the city’s abandoned power plant – and create a waterfront dining, retail, social and recreational hub.
But years of community momentum waned after the process fell apart last summer, when the council ignored the committee’s recommendation and ultimately decided to start over with a new and more demanding RFP.
