 Media Credit: Angela Hampton Months after demolition, the proposed Gateway Center site at 11th Avenue and High Street is still vacant.
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Unable to move forward without a development firm and any signed leasing contracts except for Barnes & Noble, the University Gateway Center has been halted while officials say it will be almost a year before any ground construction can begin.
"We were overly optimistic. For about a year, the place is going to look vacant. Depending on the weather, ground work might begin early spring of 2003," said Steve Sterrett, spokesman for Campus Partners.
Sterrett said a fee developer will be identified in September; however a signed contract with the firm will take longer. In any case, once the fee developer is selected, ground work still cannot begin.
The fee developer will not conduct the construction work and building of Gateway.
A general contractor must be hired as well as subcontractors, leasing agents, and other companies, all of whom have not been contracted, Sterrett said. Campus Partners will manage the project while the fee developer will act as a consultant to them.
It took nine months for The Druker Company Ltd. to be picked by Campus Partners as the master developer, yet Sterrett said the new developer will be picked in less than a month.
"The selection of a fee developer by September can be done. This is more a matter of making sure we've got a firm with relative experience and good chemistry with Campus Partners," Sterrett said.
Changes were made and The Druker Company left the Gateway Project on July 5. Druker was hired by Campus Partners in the spring of 1999. As the Gateway Project evolved, Campus Partners and the university decided to switch to a fee-based developer, which Druker is not.
"When the competition began, the general expectation was Campus Partners would acquire the land and the developer would bear the risk of financing the project and leasing the space," Sterrett said. "Then, they would pay Campus Partners for the lease of the land. We would then, in return, pay back the university endowment fund for the property."
Sterrett said over the last six to nine months, it made more sense to have Campus Partners be the developer because it was reducing the risk the developer was facing in investing their own money.
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