Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed is exploring whether it’s legal for the city to sell the Civic Center outside of a bid process already underway.
Bids on the 20-acre property are now under consideration by Atlanta’s economic development agency, but all are well under what city leaders hope to make off the sale, a Reed deputy said earlier this month.
In a sit-down with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday, the mayor said he was approached after the bidding process by an investment group willing to pay a higher price for the performing arts center. Now, city attorneys are exploring whether the city can legally sell the property to the group, whom Reed declined to name.
“I’ve got to believe that if I stand on the steps of City Hall and explain to everyone that we are trying to get the maximum value for a public asset, and someone is willing to pay it, I have got to believe that people will let me do that,” Reed said. “I just have to find a way for it to be appropriate.”
Another option, he noted, is to rebid the project. Reed said he expects to have an answer to his legal question in a week.
Atlanta City Councilman Andre Dickens, a board member of Invest Atlanta — the agency reviewing the bids — said earlier this month that city leaders believe the property is worth at least $40 million.
Though Reed hasn’t formally said what he hopes Civic Center will fetch: “I’ve heard a number and I think we can go out and get that number.”
The Civic Center, along Piedmont Avenue and near the headquarters of Georgia Power, has been seen for years as a potential redevelopment site. Real estate services firm Ackerman & Co. has long held rights to the property.
Kris Miller, president of Ackerman, said Friday that the company and the city agreed that those rights had expired before the city moved forward with the process to sell the aging performing arts hall.
Ackerman is among the companies said by people in the real estate community to have made an offer in the city’s closed bidding process.
Miller declined to confirm that. But he said he is supportive of the city’s efforts to sell the property to the private sector for redevelopment. He declined further comment, he added, out of respect for an ongoing sales process.
Atlanta wants to shed financially under-performing city properties to free up cash ahead of an infrastructure bond referendum in March. Voters will decide whether to borrow up to $250 million to help tackle a backlog of more than $1 billion in needed road, bridge and sidewalk repairs.
A 2012 study of the Civic Center property anticipated it was on track to lose $400,000 annually through 2017. Releasing the arts venue to the private sector would generate new property tax revenue.
The request for proposals issued in October had goals for the property, including increasing jobs and creating an economic anchor to drive redevelopment between Downtown, Midtown and the Old Fourth Ward.
It’s unclear just how many bids the city has received on the site. Reed said Friday that Invest Atlanta received three to four bids. A member of his administration has said the city received as many as eight.
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