A Development Authority of Clayton County leader who came under fire last year over the ill-fated $800 million “The Roman” mixed-use development proposal resigned his position Monday.
Larry Vincent, executive director of the agency, also known as Invest Clayton, tendered his resignation during a special-called meeting of the group’s board. Board members voted 7-1 to accept the resignation, with member Randy Burton opposed and Chairman C. Harrison Braddy abstaining.
“Please accept this letter of resignation as my formal notice of resignation as executive director of the Development Authority of Clayton County effective immediately with all provisions of my employment contract and 2023 annual review being honored,” Vincent wrote in his resignation letter.
“I’ve enjoyed my employment as executive director and I’m looking forward to seeing the continued success of our county and the Development Authority of Clayton County,” the letter said.
The authority will pay Vincent about $145,000 of his annual $185,000 annual salary as part of the resignation, said board member Donald “Dee Cee” Craddock. He said Vincent would not immediately get the full salary pending a board investigation of whether the departing leader was authorized to receive an almost $40,000 bonus in 2022.
Vincent could not immediately be reached for comment.
The Clayton authority is a low profile agency, but it came under scrutiny in recent years after the summer 2022 announcement of “The Roman,” an ambitious and futuristic-looking mixed-use development that Clayton leaders hoped would jumpstart development in the southside community. Clayton has often been overlooked by big metro Atlanta developers, despite it being the home of Hartsfield-Jackson International, the world’s busiest airport.
As executive director of the authority since 2020, Vincent had been the county’s point man for development of “The Roman.” The project, set for a mostly empty shopping center in Lake City, was to consist of two condo buildings, an office tower, a hotel, an amphitheater and a small business incubator on the property along Jonesboro Road.
Credit: Courtesy Roman United, Yamasaki and Bad Consult
Credit: Courtesy Roman United, Yamasaki and Bad Consult
Each of the four high-rises would reach at least 25 stories, the tallest south of I-20. As part of the deal, upstart developer Roman United got control of the land under a long-term lease for a nominal fee and also won a $4 million contract to build the incubator.
But the project fell apart under intense scrutiny after months of questions about its viability and whether it had been properly vetted.
For instance, Roman United leaders said the project had potentially hundreds of millions in investor funding — including $100 million in an Australian bank account — but could not prove the sources of the funds.
A letter of “conditional commitment” for the project was also questioned after Vaughn Richmond, a twice-convicted felon who signed it, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that investors “hadn’t come to a clear understanding” with Roman when the document was sent and that it wasn’t binding. Richmond, who described himself as an executive for a Singapore-based wealth management firm, however insisted that Australian investor funding was real.
In addition, Jacques Roman, Roman United’s leader and the namesake of the project, had limited background in development, used images on his company’s website for projects the firm was not involved with and that were misrepresented. For instance, his portfolio briefly featured a shopping center, a botanical garden and a college innovation center — that did not exist, the AJC found, with images that actually depicted a German mall, a UNESCO world heritage site and Harvard University.
Roman also had been evicted from his Dunwoody apartment in 2019 for failing to pay more than $2,700 in rent and utilities.
The development authority severed ties with the project in May 2023.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Former development board member Drew Andrews said he was saddened by the news of Vincent’s departure. He said Vincent, who was a past chairman of the board, brought decades of expertise to Clayton and that he was taking the blame for a project that many of the county’s leaders signed off on.
“Larry is a casualty of the petty politics that is destroying Clayton County,” he said.
Craddock said questions about the project left a stain on Clayton County and on Vincent’s leadership and that perhaps the organization needs new blood.
“The Roman United thing was over the head of the board and that was always something that we were going to address because we had so many new members on the board,” he said.
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