Interest growing in possible sale of former Fall River police station

FALL RIVER — With possibly multiple parties interested in buying the former Bedford Street police station, city officials are working to fast-track the purchase and redevelopment of the century-old building.

City Councilor Leo Pelletier and Interim City Administrator Mary Sahady indicated that several possible buyers have at least expressed interest in the property during Tuesday's meeting of the City Council’s Committee on Real Estate.

“I think we are being proactive in that we may have a number of people interested in bidding on the particular request for proposal,” said Sahady. “We’re hopeful that in this particular instance, in 2020 we may be able to sell this property once and for all.”

The city’s efforts to unload the former police station from its roster of vacant properties have proved a consistent municipal headache over the past decade., during which the property has changed hands several times. Two former owners eventually became the focus of two separate criminal investigations in Florida.

Interest in the building appeared to be waning last year, when an auction of city properties yielded no takers.

Roughly one year later, a new request for proposals is being drawn up and a project timeline to have the building occupied by 2023 is being established.

“We’re almost ready to put it back out. The goal would be for it to go out and have a response date of April 24,” said Matthew Thomas, the city’s tax title attorney.

If potential buyers respond by the April deadline, Thomas said a “mutually agreeable” purchase-and-sale agreement would have to be executed by June 12. The timeline described by Thomas also included a June 2022 date for the start of construction and a June 2023 deadline by which the owners would have to produce a certificate of occupancy.

“For a project like this in a strategic area like this, to have it done correctly and make sure the I’s have been dotted and the T’s have been crossed, this is pretty much the quickest route you can go,” Thomas said.

Thomas also provided to councilors an indication of what the city hopes the building would be used for, noting that office space and housing below market-rate are not being considered high priorities.

“What we’re trying to attract is market-rate housing with commercial on the first floor if we can,” he said. “That gives you the best mixed use and the best situation from a tax base.”

Over $80,000 in back taxes are owed on the property. While a buyer could bid for the full amount, Thomas said lower offers could be considered if the buyer is able to document property issues that would necessitate a lower price.

The former police station, which has sat vacant since 1997, has been the subject of several city efforts to find a new use for the property.

In 2007, the City Council controversially voted to sell the property to a lone “qualified bidder” without setting parameters on what could be developed there. The decision came after the council rejected a $25,000 bid from local developer Anthony Cordeiro, who had been eyeing the property as the site of a $4 million commercial project he was planning.

The property’s buyer, Florida real estate developer John Pavao, planned to spend $1 million putting a restaurant and offices in the building, but his arrest in an alleged real estate scam led to news that he had sold the former station to another Florida developer, Pedro Benevides, for $100.

In 2008, Benevides sold the property to the Florida-based Casper Holdings LLC for $1.28 million, a sum nearly 10 times the amount for which the city had sold the property.

The city took the building back through tax title in 2012 with $60,000 in back taxes still owed on the property.