A developer’s request for an extension to complete the stalled Washington Square Hotel project in downtown Tallahassee is likely to be denied by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA), represented by all five Tallahassee City Commissioners.
The Tallahassee Democrat on Feb. 21 described the site of the originally proposed “flagship entertainment and mixed-use high-rise” as a “stalled construction quagmire.”
Developer Ken McDermott asked to extend the completion deadline from March 8 to Sept. 8 but the newspaper reported that any extension requested by him and the “now dissolved Fairmont Development LLC is unlikely to be granted” by the CRA.
CRA staff recommends not extending the deadline because several documents requested were not received and “it doesn’t appear McDermott has found another financier for the project.” The CRA was to meet today (Feb. 24).
“The CRA in December all but shut down the prospect of doing any further business with Fairmont on the project when McDermott took the podium to ask for loan funding,” The Democrat reported.
“Just days earlier he told the CRA’s citizen’s board he would need between $500,000 and $3 million to keep the project afloat and attract unnamed, out-of-state investors to take it over. He told the CRA board that current ‘market conditions’ made such a project unfavorable to investors.”
