PANAMA CITY — To Panama City Commissioner Billy Rader, the offer might be too good to ignore. After all, he said, “Nobody is making any more waterfront property.”
The property in question is at 430 W. Fifth St., a 4.8 acre tract at the corner of Fifth and Beach Drive, directly on the water.
The land is owned by SE Property Holdings, which is offering the land to the city for $3.2 million with the condition that it is used for public use.
“This could be a plus with the makeover plan,” Rader said, referring to the marina project. “At one time it was a lot higher price than this.”
During a recent City Commission meeting, Mayor Greg Brudnicki and Commissioner Kenneth Brown both said the city might need the property.
“The property is reasonable enough now that somebody could put something on the ‘gateway’ that would not be as advantageous or desirable as we would want,” Brudnicki said. “Somebody could put up town homes and put a fence around it.”
Commissioner John Kady was the only commissioner who expressed concerns about a potential purchase, mainly that the city would be taking a valuable piece of land off the market and committing it to be a park.
“There are not enough large tracks of land out there,” Kady said.
Brudnicki wondered how ironclad is the public use condition. City Attorney Nevin Zimmerman said it would stay in effect for five years.
In public comment, William Swift said public use could apply to more than just parks.
The commission would want to use the property as a part of the marina project.
The commission also has the option to purchase adjacent properties — .43 acres at 111 Beach Drive from Clifford Myers for $495,000 (although Currie told Zimmerman he may accept $450,000) and .68 acres at 113 Beach from XBay LLC, for $890,675. It voted unanimously to continue with negotiations.
Speaking of spending around the marina project, City Manager Jeff Brown announced that the city has spent $85,840 in legal and consulting fees. More than half of that figure, $45,570 went to Burke, Blue, Hutchison, Walters the firm that employees city attorney Nevin Zimmerman, $17,207 went to Harrison, Sale, McCloy, who employee consultant Doug Sale and $12,512 going to Real Estate Research Consultants, Owen Beitsch’s company.
With the commission thinking about even more spending for the marina, Planning Board member Robbie Hughes spoke out.
“We paid him to recommend somebody, who in my opinion, had the worst proposal,” Hughes said of Beitsch. “Why are we giving Burke and Blue extra money when Nevin is the city attorney?”
Jeff Brown responded that Zimmerman is paid differently as part of a special project. Burke and Blue also provided meeting space when each of the proposed developers met with staff.
Zimmerman said, now that two developers have been selected, costs will start to decrease. However, Zimmerman said he previously estimated the costs at this point would be closer to $60,000.