District 1 County Commissioner Steve Stroberger wants Beulah Town Center, the development group headed by Fred Hemmer, to purchase OLF 8, a 540-acre site located in Beulah that Escambia County acquired in a land swap with the Navy for $17.3 million. At last week’s commission meeting, he threw shade at Hemmer’s competitor, Tri-W, to pressure county staff to recommend Hemmer and persuade his fellow commissioners to “trust his judgment after extensive research.”
- BACKGROUND: There is a Kevin Bacon-type link between Hemmer and Stroberger. Hemmer contributed to former Commissioner Doug Underhill’s legal defense—Underhill’s aide was Jonathan Owen, who later helped manage Stroberger’s campaign–Stroberger has appointed Owens to the county planning board despite Owens being under investigation for ethics violations. In January, Stroberger made the motion for county staff to negotiate with Hemmer on the sale and return with an agreement within 30 days – Those negotiations fell apart.
Name-Calling
Stroberger’s motion last week: “I move that we have the county staff evaluate both PSAs from both Tri-W (Chad Henderson) and Beulah Town Center (Hemmer) and …that means taking both offers side by side and give this board some feedback.”
Then he added, “Additionally, I think that we should have purchasing assess the developing partners because I think they’re starkly different. One does really good strip malls. The other one has been doing planned grand plan communities for a very, very long time. And I think that once they do that, once they take a look at that, they’re going to see the difference between the two and which one we should have the difference. I’m telling you, there’s a significant difference between both of these developers.”
BACKGROUND: In January, Inweekly analyzed Tri-W Development Group. Catalyst HRE partnered with Alabama-based commercial real estate developer Jim Wilson and Associates (JWA) and former Pensacola Mayor Ashton Hayward to form Tri-W Development LLC.
- Catalyst HRE has a portfolio valued at over $1 billion. In partnership with Florida State University, Catalyst is developing a 150,000-square-foot facility primarily emphasizing football operations. Current projects under development also include the Ochsner Andrews Institute in New Orleans. The medical services facility will include an orthopedic center that will be utilized by professional athletes who play for the New Orleans Saints and New Orleans Pelicans.
JWA is a 50-year-old company with a portfolio that includes projects such as the Riverchase Galleria, located just outside of Birmingham, and the Mall of Louisiana in Baton Rouge.
- I don’t know what Stroberger’s “extensive research” included, but Catalyst HRE and JWA aren’t “strip mall” developers.
- On the other hand, Metro Development Group, Hemmer’s partner, has developed planned residential communities – not light-industrial or commercial properties. OLF-8 Master Plan doesn’t call for a planned community to be built on the 540 acres; very little of OLF-8 is residential.
OLF-8 Master Plan – the one Blackwell and Moore love – allocates 271 acres to commerce and industrial and only 61 acres solely for residential. Another 45 acres are for public amenities, such as a town center, and 47 acres have been allocated for a mixed-use center, such as residential over retail and office over retail.
Pushback
Stroberger’s snide remark did little to persuade his fellow commissioners to trust his judgment.
- Commissioner Ashlee Hofberger objected: “I don’t think summarizing Chad’s (Henderson) experience into strip malls is an appropriate summarization of his experience.”