Susan Stabley over at The Charlotte Business Journal provides a detailed run-down of the contractors claiming they have not been paid for work on the EpiCenter. She also quite amazingly gets Afshin Ghazi to comment after weeks of chasing him down. Ghazi relates that it is perfectly normal to have these sorts of conflicts at the end of large projects.
Really? I do not recall similar disputes as the Uptown arena wound up. And then there is the not small fact that the arena was actually completed, unlike the EpiCenter which is going on a year of being mostly finished, yet open for business.
Meanwhile, what can only be described as an EpiCenter clone project intended for Milwaukee, is dead. The Journal-Sentinel reports:
Ghazi Co.’s plans to develop a mixed-use, entertainment-oriented development, dubbed the Catalyst, on a parking lot at W. Wisconsin Ave. and N. 4th St., near the Midwest Airlines Center, is officially dead.
The city Redevelopment Authority on Wednesday notified Ghazi Co. that it was terminating the agreement to sell the city-owned parcel. The deal was dropped because Ghazi was unable to meet a city deadline to show that the firm had preliminary details on financing, and other benchmarks.
I received notification from the authority about this via an email that was sent my way Wednesday night. I have not yet been unable to reach Afshin Ghazi, owner of the Charlotte, N.C.-based firm.
But the news comes as no surprise. Ghazi’s plans for the site, including a hotel, a residential component, and several night clubs and restaurants, were very ambitious.
Fascinating.
