Developer negotiating with panel for Fox Point land

PROVIDENCE – A city developer has entered into exclusive negotiations with the I-195 Redevelopment District Commission to purchase a piece of former highway land in the city’s Fox Point neighborhood.
Richard Baccari II, principal of Royal Oaks Realty LLC, confirmed in an email Monday that his group had signed a “letter of intent” to buy a property between Pike Street and Tockwotten Street from the commission.
A letter of intent is nonbinding, but typically includes the outline of a deal. Baccari said he is working to complete a purchase-and-sales agreement for the panel to approve at its Dec. 15 meeting.
Baccari, also vice president of development at Churchill & Banks Co. LLC, has previously described the I-195 project he’s working on as a mixed-use building with ground-floor retail – possibly a supermarket – with offices and apartments on upper floors.
In response to a public records request from Providence Business News, I-195 commission Executive Director Jan Brodie earlier on Monday said by email that the commission had signed two letters of intent, one more than had been made public last week when the panel approved a purchase and sales agreement with a Dallas developer planning a student apartment building.
Brodie declined to identify who had signed the second letter of intent, or divulge any details of their project, but Royal Oaks was one of only two remaining applications in the mix.
Originally, the commission had voted to release the identity of all parties who signed letters of intent, but keep all other bid information confidential.
But in response to concerns, including a letter from Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, that the public would never know what ideas the commission rejected, the panel abandoned that policy. Currently, the commission is using state public records law as a guide on when to release information and Brodie cited the exemption protecting information involving sensitive real estate transactions as the reason not to release the Royal Oaks letter.
The commission has received at least seven proposals to buy pieces of the former highway land it is marketing as The Link and passed on four of them.
In October, the commission signed a letter of intent to exclusively negotiate with the joint venture from Lincoln Property Co. and Phoenix Property Co., before signing a $2.7 million purchase and sales agreement last week.
The letter of intent included the purchase price agreed to in the sale and reserved an exclusive negotiating period of at least 30 days.
Royal Oaks and a proposed life sciences accelerator from Cambridge Biolabs and Ocean State Angels were the other two applications the commission is still considering.
Baccari declined to discuss the purchase price or additional details of the project until the commission votes on a P&S, but said the commission signed the letter of intent at the Nov. 17 meeting.
Parcel 8 is 0.84 acres and is adjacent to properties already owned by Churchill & Banks. It is zoned for a building height of 75 feet.
At an August presentation before the commission, Baccari was joined by architect Christine Malecki West, principal of Kite Architects of Providence.

No posts to display