This week’s Charlotte Business Journal fleshes out what is going on with General Growth Properties, the retail developer that we noted the other day is having a tough time paying its bills. Bottomline, it does not look like The Bridges at Mint Hill is ever going to get done — at least not with GGP involved. It can’t even afford to pay the grading contractor the money it is due, CBJ reports.
Meanwhile, deep in the paper’s building permit pull rundowns comes news that Rodgers Builders has pulled the permits for some of the the new $57.6m. CMS high school being built on Bailey Road in Cornelius. Rodgers, whom you may remember from previous cost overruns at ImaginOn and the U.S. National Log Flume Ride, values the construction at $2.8m. This includes two ticket kiosks of 162 square feet each for a total of $176,000 and three concession stands each of less than 1500 square feet for around $500K each. And the school’s athletic field house alone is a million-dollar building according to the permit.
Finally, deeper still in CBJ’s mechanics liens pull is the fascinating news that Uptown wheeler-dealer Afshin Ghazi had new liens placed against the EpiCenter at the first of December. Subcontractor Shiel-Sexton Co. Inc. claimed $471,424 on property at a planned Belle Vitta restaurant.
That lien names Ghazi’s Pacific Ave. LLC. His Pacific Ave. II LLC is named in three other liens by Southern Mechanical of the Carolinas on office property in the EpiCenter complex. The HVAC contractor is seeking about $242,000 with those liens.
Recall that back in June the city of Charlotte opted to advance Ghazi $550,000 of the $2.2m. subsidy for “public infrastructure” the city promised when the project was completed. As originally pitched, the $200m. site included a condo tower. That, much like Mint Hill’s mall, will probably never happen.
In fact, the rumor is that Ghazi’s estranged condo partner — Flaherty & Collins — is bugging out of town and shuttering its offices. Next thing to watch — the $327K property tax bill that is coming due on the site in about two weeks.
Don’t know why I bother to point this stuff out — no one cares.
