News & Record reports downtown developer Roy Carroll and the City of Greensboro “are back on speaking terms” regarding the proposed $30 million parking deck. Remember back in April Carroll received a surprise phone call from Mayor Nancy Vaughan notifying that the deal was off and the city was moving forward with its own standalone deck a few blocks from the original site.
Carroll is now dealing with acting City Manager David Parrish, who took over when Jim Westmoreland—who went along with Vaughan’s decision to pull out of the original deal– retired on April 30.
Parrish said last week that he and Carroll have talked by phone and in person after relations with the prominent developer grew icy. And while Parrish won’t promise that the Bellemeade deck is completely back on track, he is ready to reopen discussions after Carroll said the city botched some of the basic rules of negotiation.
…“I don’t want to try to go back and focus on what might have been said,” Parrish explained. “I just want to focus on going forward. If there’s an opportunity, we’ll mutually agree. And if there’s not, we’ll mutually agree.”
…Regardless, Carroll has no plans to abandon his potential project that could lead to a deck, hotel and office tower that might be the tallest in the Triad at nearly 500 feet high.
“I don’t know where we stand because we have a City Council vote to proceed with architecture and then I get a call from the mayor to not proceed so we’re not even sure where we stand,” he said. “I can tell you a number of City Council members have reached out to me and said, ‘What’s going on? Is there any way to get this back on track?’ Then you have to define what track we’re talking about here.
Nothing on the agenda regarding Carroll’s deck on the agenda for tonight’s City Council meeting, but that doesn’t mean it won’t come up. There were council members who were as surprised as Carroll was at the mayor’s decision to pull out; I expect they won’t let go of this deal so easily.