Last week I hosted a roundtable of local leaders in the commercial real estate industry at the Skirvin. It's lengthy but interesting. Check it out here (http://www.okcreview.com/contents.php?top_cms_id=16).

That was a very interesting read, particularly this

Mark Beffort:


The city has hired me to acquire all of the land for Core to Shore. We meet once a month and we have a very slow process in going about it. We’re not swooping in and buying all the land. We’ll be buying it over time. When the Core to Shore project first started to come about, a lot of people swooped in there and started speculating and those people have probably lost some money. Some people are asking $40 and $50 per sq. ft. for land and the city is just not going to pay that. We’re very upfront that we want to buy the land, but the city is not going to overpay.

We’re under contract on three pieces right now and we will buy three or four pieces a year and it is going to take awhile. I think it will take us three to four years just to buy the land for the Central Park.

I think it would be interesting to learn exactly how they value the property they buy and what their criteria are. I would hope they pay what the land was fetching just prior to any knowledge about C2S which is it's real worth. If they are truly getting the most bang for the buck, those who think the city can't do anything right would be happy to see their tax dollars are NOT being wasted.

They shouldnt have to overpay with eminent domain in effect