The Sunnyvale Sun

News

The city edges a bit closer to moving on with the mall

Developer's failure to respond to ouster sparks closed meetings

By JASON GOLDMAN-HALL

Although there has been no official word from the city regarding progress on Town Center Mall negotiations, the city council is already planning how it will deal with the redevelopment project once Fourth Quarter Properties, LLC is removed.

Sunnyvale Mayor Ron Swegles said Sept. 27 that when the council opens up the bidding process on the Town Center Mall redevelopment, the selection of a new contractor will be done in a public session rather than the traditional closed meeting.

"We want the community's input," Swegles said. "We want to know if the citizens want to keep the plan we have in place or if they want to start the process--the very long process--of coming up with a new project."

Swegles said the plan, discussed behind closed doors before the Sept. 26 council meeting, could be put to a formal council vote for approval as early as Oct. 10.

At the Oct. 10 city council meeting at 7 p.m., City Attorney David Kahn will present an update on the current state of

negotiations.

Since Aug. 14, when the council decided to exercise its right to buy the property from Fourth Quarter and move ahead on the project without the Atlanta-based company, there have been a number of closed meetings between the city council and its legal counsel regarding "pending litigation."

If Fourth Quarter does respond to the council's request to buy the land, the first step is for the two groups to work out a price for the property.

If they can't agree, each will hire an outside appraiser to come up with a price for the land, and if the two figures are within 20 percent of one another, the final price will be the average of the two. If the numbers are off by more than 20 percent, the appraisers will hire a third appraiser to find a value for the land.

Swegles is on record as saying that if Fourth Quarter does not respond, legal action may need to be taken.

The city has been trying to get Fourth Quarter to carry out the project for the better part of a year, since demolition first stalled at the beginning of the year. On March 8, the city issued a formal notice of default to the developers for failing to meet a number of deadlines. Instead of a satisfactory response to the notice, Fourth Quarter came back to the city with proposed changes to the plan, including the possible addition of 200 more housing units. At the time, then-project manager Jane Vaughan said the additional units were necessary to offset rising construction and material costs.

The city refused to address the changes until the original breach of contract was discussed and, along the way, Vaughan was removed from the project by the developers.

The city moved to take over the project after the continued lack of an adequate response from the developers.

By press time, Fourth Quarter representatives had not returned phone calls requesting comment.