According to this Santa Rosa Chronicle article the Halcorp lease expired July 8, 2008!!!! Why didn’t the city council draft a Request for Proposal for the Halcorp site? If Halcorp came back with the best offer during an open bid process, then so be it, but shouldn’t others get a shot at the property?
Here is what the reporter Deborah Nelson wrote on March 25, 2008 about the long-term leases at the Port:
Pate Cold Storage, a poultry-export firm, holds a lease until February 22, 2009. Thereafter, the company holds mutual option renewals through February 2024.
Cemex, a road construction materials warehouse, holds three sole option lease renewals through December 2022.
Martin Marietta, an aggregate rock importing firm, holds a sole option lease that expires in November 2012. Thereafter, mutual option renewals run through November 2022.
But the last lease, held by Halcorp, expires July 8 of this year, with no renewal options. Halcorp deals in liquid asphalt from Louisiana and Texas. The current lease covers 10 acres in the Port’s northeastern zone.
This is truly amazing that this city council is actually considering tying up the port for industrial use for 10 or 20 more years without any bidding.
Read the entire article: Port of Pensacola looks to diversify