Members of Vero Beach’s negotiating team met last week with the city’s financial consultant and outside legal counsel to identify the terms they want included in the development contract for Three Corners.
The only detail provided by City Manager Monte Falls and Project Manager Peter Polk was confirmation Vero will offer a 99-year lease to its chosen developer – a partnership between Indiana-based Clearpath Services and a group headed by Madison Marquette.
How much the city expects the developer to pay to lease the 17-acre property remains unknown.
Once a lease is signed for the property that currently contains the city’s now-defunct power plant, Polk said, the developer may then finalize their plan for creation of a waterfront dining, retail, social and recreational hub on the Vero mainland. He said he didn’t expect any significant work to begin before 2027.
“We sat down to outline what terms we want to see in the development agreement,” Falls said after the meeting, which was also attended by City Planning Director Jason Jeffries, City Attorney John Turner, two representatives of the PFM Advisors financial consulting firm and attorney Tom Cloud.
“PFM is working on the terms sheet, which would be the framework of any future agreement,” he added. “It will define the city’s obligation and what we expect the developer to do.
“We expect PFM to provide us with the sheet in mid-December.”
If there are no hiccups in the process, Falls said, the city expects the first negotiating session with the developer to begin next month.
As the week began, however, the developer hadn’t yet satisfied all of the pre-negotiating conditions included in the city’s Request For Proposals.
According to Polk, the RFP requires the developer to pay the city a $50,000 deposit – $25,000 of which is non-refundable – prior to the start of negotiations.
The deposit is, essentially, earnest money or a good-faith payment to show the city the developers intend to enter negotiations with the intent of reaching an agreement satisfactory to both parties.
Polk said that, as of last week, the city hadn’t received the payment.
But he wasn’t worried.
“That will come once we get the Letter of Intent to negotiate,” Polk said. “I don’t anticipate any problems. The developer knows the city won’t sign the Letter of Intent until the all the conditions have been satisfied.”
Mayor John Cotugno said he was optimistic about the negotiations, but he sees “no reason to rush” through the process, which, if necessary, can be extended beyond the 120 days included in the RFP.
“We’re just moving ahead based on our schedule, but we don’t have a firm or fixed time allotted to each phase,” Cotugno said. “I’d rather move in a slow, thoughtful manner and take the time needed to ensure we’re doing everything right.
“We’ve already been at this for six years,” he added. “If it takes a little longer to get what we want, so be it.”
A month ago, the City Council voted unanimously to authorize its bargaining team to begin negotiations with Clearpath president Randy Lloyd and Madison Marquette managing director David Brainerd.
Both men attended the Nov. 4 meeting in Vero Beach and seemed eager to begin negotiations.
“We’ve come a long way,” Lloyd told the council. “We’ve put a lot of effort into this, and we’ve got a joint group to better the project, better the proposal. … We’re excited to move forward.”
Falls called the Three Corners project a “great opportunity for the city” and said the development group chosen by the council has “gotten better since we made the selection.”
He was referring to the joint-venture agreement, finalized in September by Clearpath, the council’s No. 1 choice to develop the site, and the group headed by Madison Marquette, which submitted the only other proposal the city received last December.
Madison Marquette not only provided the financing capability missing from Clearpath’s proposal – Lloyd lost a major backer in the weeks before proposals were to be submitted last year – but it also brings an abundance of operational experience.
Brainerd agreed that the joint effort should result in a more successful project.
