BILLS BEING proposed in the Mississippi state Legislature this year could have a profound effect on the future of the old School for the Blind property.

Four items are being considered in the Senate Public Property Committee, while lawmakers are mulling over three bills in the same committee in the House.

The bills range from pieces of legislation that would authorize the state to sell the land for redevelopment, to proposals that would give the Mississippi secretary of state’s office more authority over leasing the land.

The property is located across from the Mississippi School for the Blind on Eastover Drive.

District 66 Rep. Cecil Brown has authored two proposals, both of which would allow the land to be sold by the Mississippi Development Authority (MDA) and Department of Finance and Administration (DFA). The items are House Bills 1366 and 637.

“The money would be put in a trust for the School for the Blind,” he said. “It would be sold with covenants, so not just any development would be permitted.” Brown has worked with District 25 Sen. Walter Michel on a bill with similar language in the Senate.

Measures are also being sponsored by District Eight Sen. Jack Gordon, District 26 Sen. John Horhn and District 68 Rep. Credell Calhoun. All items being presented require that the property be sold for no less than its fair market value.

Brown said his legislation would cut out the bureaucracy and make the acreage easier to develop. “The state has had a hard time working on the lease,” he said.

During the 2007 legislative session, the House passed a measure that would make the property available to developers. The state then issued a nationwide request for proposals to find a project best suited for the area.

The development authority would only consider bids of $100 million or more and required companies to make a $100,000 deposit prior to building there. Two firms, Duckworth Realty and Barranco Architecture, were chosen for the project.

However, two years after the firms were selected, a lease agreement has yet to be hammered out with Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann.

Brown said there were several issues that the state is having difficulty working out, such as how much the developers should pay for the lease, the terms of the lease agreement, and the responsibility of the state over approving sub-leases.

“A sale would be easy, we have the property appraised and we put it up for auction,” he said. “It would bring in money and get another property on the tax rolls.” The bill would terminate the agreement with Duckworth and Barranco.

DESPITE HAVING $600,000 already invested in the project, Duckworth supports selling the land and said he will put in another bid to build on it if Brown’s bill passes.

He outlined his concerns at a meeting in downtown Jackson. He told those in attendance that Hosemann is asking too much to lease the acreage, making it less profitable to build there, and created an arbitrary timeline for the project to be built out.

The Northside developer is also worried that the restrictions will make it harder to obtain the financing needed to get his project off the ground.

“The secretary is not willing to subordinate the property, meaning that banks can’t put a lien on the lease,” he said. “When it’s unsubordinated, if you default on the loan, the bank will have no claim to the land. There are too many unknowns for lenders.”

Duckworth, Barranco and Breck Hines plan to build the District at Eastover, a $150 million development that would include approximately 640,000 square feet of office, retail, commercial, hotel and residential space.

If developed, Jackson and Hinds County would stand to rake in millions of dollars in much-needed revenue, including $2.35 million in property taxes, $2.3 million in sales tax and $469,000 in personal property taxes.

Brown’s bill includes provisions to ensure that a project like Duckworth’s will go up.

Under House Bill 1366, the agencies would be allowed to sell the property for “the highest and best proposal,” he said. “The project would have to complement the neighborhood. There would be no strip malls or bingo parlors.”

Once proposals are presented to the state, an evaluation team shall take into consideration several pieces of criteria, such as the qualifications and financial stability of the developer; the developer’s experience with respect to comparable properties; the cost and scope of the project; and the person’s ability to obtain financing.

Said Brown: “Our biggest concern is to protect and conserve the area. We don’t want developments to be detrimental to the surrounding businesses and homeowners and we’re going to do all we can to prevent that from happening.”