Clayton County leaders demanded Tuesday the developer of “The Roman” project return $559,000 his group has been paid for a future county-run business incubator during a fiery meeting in which commissioners who have supported the futuristic high-rise complex turned against it.
Development group Roman United appeared before county commissioners to provide an update on site plans for their $800 million proposed Lake City project, which includes a $4 million Clayton County small business development center.
Instead they got a steady drubbing from commissioners who assailed them as dishonest, unprofessional and incompetent. They told Roman United and developer Jacques Roman that the county is moving on from the incubator.
“You all need to give us our $559,000 back tonight,” Commissioner Alieka Anderson told the developers, her voice rising and as audience members applauded. “Not tomorrow night, not any other night. I called you here because I want the money paid back to the citizens of Clayton County.”
Commissioner DeMont Davis agreed. He said Roman and Invest Clayton — an economic development arm of the county that vouched for the project — have kept commissioners in the dark about the project for months.
“I have very little faith in Roman United or the development authority to get this project moving forward,” he said.
When asked by Clayton County Chairman Jeff Turner to respond, Roman softly said, “No, we don’t have any comment on that.”
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com
Roman unveiled his namesake project of high-rise condos, offices, a hotel and amphitheater last August during a pair of lavish groundbreaking ceremonies and to praise from many county leaders. A September investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution found Roman embellished his development experience on his website, went through a recent eviction and promised an aggressive development timeline before obtaining a single permit.
Clayton leaders grew increasingly concerned near the end of the year when Roman allegedly failed to meet several benchmarks to convey progress on the project, including development of the incubator.
County attorney Charles Reed told the commission that he sent Roman United a letter in January that Clayton would no longer pursue placing the incubator at the site. He said that Roman responded that he understood the county’s change in position.
“I’m a little confused as to why he’s still listing an incubator here,” Reed said.
An AJC investigation last month also raised questions about the lack of serious vetting by leaders from the county and Invest Clayton. The newspaper found that a three-page “conditional commitment” letter that Roman provided to Invest Clayton to demonstrate the project’s financial backing was signed by a twice-convicted felon who spent a year in prison for his involvement in a wire fraud case.
The man, Vaughn Richmond, who identifies himself as an executive for a Singapore-based wealth management firm, told the AJC in March that investors “hadn’t come to a clear understanding” with Roman when the commitment letter was sent and that it wasn’t binding.
Landry Merkison, Clayton’s fire department chief and chief resilience officer, said Tuesday the county paid Roman in three installments. The first payment was for $59,000 for a seven-page PowerPoint presentation defining what is an incubator. The next was for $200,000 for a 27-page presentation that included the building’s design schematics.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Lastly, the county paid $300,000 for a 49-page presentation with seismic data and details on the impact wind loads could have on the low-rise building. Merkison said the information in the first document was repeated in the second and third.
Ben Hopkins, the county’s director of buildings and maintenance, said he reviewed the documents and told Roman that what was supplied was not typical of the construction documents his office usually receives. He did not explain what types of documents he was expecting.
He said that Roman’s response was that he was using “international” methods and what they turned in was where they were in the process.
“We said this doesn’t look right,” Hopkins said, adding that he was wrong to support Roman United. “We said this doesn’t smell right, this doesn’t appear to be what we want to do.”
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