EVERETT — The company planning a $400 million redevelopment of the city’s waterfront has failed to make a scheduled $1.09 million payment to the Port of Everett, but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer interested in the project.
Chicago’s Maritime Trust, a partner with the port on a project to add some 660 waterfront condos and commercial and office buildings, is lacking money, not interest.
“There are not two pennies of financing around these days,” Bert Meers, an executive with Maritime Trust, said Tuesday. “We’re scraping around for the million dollars. Who knows what’s going to happen.”
Port officials said Tuesday that Maritime was supposed to make the payment by the end of April to compensate the port for the money it would have made on leases in the area to be developed. Many of the buildings there have been razed. If the payment isn’t made by the end of this month, the port could seek another developer.
“They have 30 days to cure the deficiency,” said John Mohr, the port’s executive director. “If they don’t, they will be in default. We are hopeful that they will, in fact, cure it.”
Meers said the company’s contract with the port calls for the lease compensation payment to be refunded when Maritime Trust pays for the land on which it will build the condos.
“It’s really just a refundable deposit,” Meers said. “I don’t want to lose the project over money that we will get back.”
Meers said he hopes to convince the port to consider some alternatives that don’t require the $1.09 million or that would provide for a lesser payment.
“Hopefully we will be able to work something out,” he said.
Meers noted that the project had financing that was later canceled. And few financial companies if any have been backing such developments these days.
“The world is not wonderful right now,” he said. “But it looks like spring is coming. We had financing once, and we will have it again.”
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