From Indiana’s News Center:
City Still Confident Harrison Square Condos Will Be a Success
Published June 3, 2008
By Jeff NeumeyerFort Wayne Mayor Tom Henry’s administration reiterated Tuesday it believes the Harrison Square condominium project would be a success, despite early sales that are not hitting the mark.
The Henry administration also explained a correction on some project financial numbers that were out of whack.
The Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette published an article Tuesday, fixing the interest costs that will fall on the shoulders of taxpayers at 75-million dollars.
City officials admitted later they provided wrong figures to the newspaper.
75-million is actually the total debt, principal plus interest, that is owed on the bonds used to fund construction of the new baseball stadium and parking garage.
Those are the components of the downtown development that the public is responsible for.
The city error overestimated the cost of the project by almost 44-million dollars.
Meanwhile, city officials say they have full confidence the condo developers will complete 62 luxury units by June 2009 as the contract demands.
Director Greg Leatherman/Ft. Wayne Redevelopment: ” They intend to fulfill their agreement with us. Obviously, if we get past September and construction hasn’t started, we’ll know then what we need to do, and we’ll have some appropriate response.”
The city will not say that its course of action under such a scenario would be to file suit.
But that certainly would be one of the options.
One of the frustrations for the condo developers is the woefully slow start in getting buyers to commit on the units.
At last report, only five had sold out of 62 luxury units available.
Previous AFW Posts:
Harrison Square Interest – 6/3/2008
Chris Schoen: “We will finance this project.” – 5/21/2008
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