With a lawsuit apparently settled, airport officials have approved selling 83.9 acres south of Louisville International Airport for $10.4 million to a developer that plans two distribution facilities with over 1.2 million square feet of space.
The deal to sell the property to Verus Partners LLC of Chicago was approved Wednesday by the Louisville Renaissance Zone Corp. board. That entity is an affiliate of the Regional Airport Authority — it has the same board and staff — and is overseeing development of Renaissance South Business Park.
The 540-acre business park is where hundreds of homes in noise-prone areas near the airport were purchased by airport officials over the last 20-plus years.
Skip Miller, executive director of the airport authority, said Verus plans to develop two distribution-warehouse buildings on the property, each with about 620,000 square feet of space. They would be among the area’s two largest structures, but no timetable was given for their construction.
Airport officials had an almost identical deal to sell the land to Verus in April 2013. But they filed a suit in Jefferson Circuit Court this past March contending that Verus had failed to deliver a letter of credit required under the agreement, guaranteeing it could pay for the land and related road and utility improvements.
Miller said in an interview Thursday that Verus recently was joined in the local venture by Molto Properties, a large industrial real estate firm also based in Chicago.
Miller said the new agreement requires that Molto put up a $1 million letter of credit offering assurances that the project can be completed. He said that, with Molto as a partner, he is confident the deal can be closed in October and that the project will proceed. Miller said the new agreement is intended to make the lawsuit go away.
The land under contract to Verus is north of South Park Road, between Minors Lane on the east and Air Commerce Drive on the west.
Airport officials referred questions about Verus to Thomas Theobald, a Verus senior vice president, who didn’t return phone calls Thursday.
Source: http://www.courier-journal.com
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