By TEREASA NIMS
Sunday Times Newspapers
ALLEN PARK — There are three looming proposals for Southfield Lease Properties and Emergency Manager Joyce Parker said she hopes to divulge them in the upcoming weeks.
“I’m considering one proposal in a very serious situation,” Parker said of the former Unity Studios property.
Parker said she will offer a “more detailed report on what is being considered” in the next two weeks.
Parker recently met with the mayor and City Council in closed session regarding the proposals.
Although Parker won’t say what the proposals are, she said if the city moves forward with a proposal, they intend to retire the current property bond debt and reissue it at a lower amount.
The city paid $25 million for the property in 2008 which is valued at an estimated $10 million, Councilman Dennis Hayes said of the slowly decaying building. City officials have been trying to sell it for three years. They hoped the property would lure movie executives and film production.
“We all agree it initially sounded like a good idea at the time,” Hayes said. “It was not a good idea in hind sight. But hind sight is always 20/20.”
(Tereasa Nims can be reached at [email protected])