I think jaxnyc is mainly concerned with the city getting closer to breaking even off of this, or covering some losses. The city's already in relatively deep, and will effectively double or maybe even triple its basis in the site without reaping any substantial benefits from selling the land to private interests.
If for anything at all, the city should get closer to a 50-50 split simply for PR and for covering its political tracks with the public (and in my opinion that would benefit Khan too if he wants to continue to be seen as the Lord Almighty savior of Jax and get away with taking advantage of the taxpayers to a degree). But putting more taxpayer money into the land, and then giving it away, and allowing all future tax revenue from any development that occurs on the site to go back into the site (upfront), into private hands, is a major major lose-lose for the taxpayer.
Effectively, the city is spending a fortune on legal, on sunk/lost money on prior development deals, on remediation, cleanup, and improvements, and at most will get a few million back, while someone else with virtually no skin in the game can own the land and decide what to do next - sell to other group(s) for a profit for his investment vehicle, partner in development deals for his investment vehicle (where at least he's taking on risk), or sit on the land and do nothing, at no cost.
Nobody's hoping the city turns a big buck here. The city's not a for profit business anyway. However, if in the fat chance the city is ever trying to do something else (like build transit, convention center, more riverwalks, new parks, etc), it could turn a profit on a land sale such as this and recycle that cash somewhere else. That's really what would be the ultimate goal. However, I think we all understand this is Jacksonville.
If the city can't afford to mow road median lawns or replace street lights, then I don't think it can afford to effectively give away some of its most potentially valuable land (relatively speaking), and especially AFTER spending money (a fortune for Jax, too) to make it potentially valuable. It's already giving away tax revenues on the land.
Frankly, I wish the city would just do ground leases. Lots of similar pieces of land in other cities are owned by government entities, or ports, etc, and are on ground leases with minimal issues for seeing development.
The Landing appears to be moving forward, and that's on a ground lease. It was pegged as a concern before (because who doesn't want to outright own the land), but now that a more market-based approach has been designed and penciled out, looks like nobody's having any issues with that ground lease now. And the city still owns the land and has ultimate say, while Sleiman can redevelop the Landing basically to his liking, and from a financial perspective, the taxpayers don't lose out so bad.
