VERO BEACH, Fla. — The Vero Beach City Council voted 3-1 Friday to exclude SuDa from the "Three Corners" project, disqualifying the developer from the process.
The council also passed a motion to restart the Request for Proposal process.
Council member Tracey Zudans of District 5 asked to recuse herself from the vote because of a conflict of interest.
She said received an email regarding her run for office in Indian River County that threatened support depending on how she voted.
"An email that had a veiled threat of support or not support based on how I was going to vote and that support gives the appearance for showing bias for one vote or the other," Zudans told WPTV.
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Vero Beach calls special meeting, may disqualify project applicant
The decision to exclude SuDa comes just days after the council voted to accept their $140 million proposal.
Questions arose after a different developer, Clearpath, promised to pour $500 million into its proposal, which was more than double what the three other developers promised to pay and far surpassed SuDa, Crec Capital and Madison Marquette's joint $140 million proposal.
As early as 2018 the city has talked about turning the 33 acres of land on the Intracoastal Waterway — once home to the city's former power plant, water treatment plant and post office — into a waterfront destination.
May 28th, the City awarded the Three Corners project bid to developer SuDa and its partners CREC Capital and Madison Marquette, who submitted a joint proposal.
SuDa beat out the second place competitor, Clearpath, by one point, and earlier, a committee of people chose picked Clearpath as their recommendation to City Council.
Then, emails the City released showed SuDa's corporate president, Gaurav Butani, reached out to City Council right before the vote to address concern about their vision and tout an endorsement from another state's Governor, breaking a no solicitation or communication rule that was in place to keep the bidding process fair.
"A mistake was made, we need to address that, and the best way to do that is to call a special meeting," Mayor John Cotugno told WPTV's Kate Hussey Thursday.
In that meeting, Vice Mayor Linda Moore said the process had gotten to messy to continue, and suggested the Council start the process over again.
Council member Zudans agreed.
"The process seemed tainted, and so we basically need to start the process over again," Zudans told WPTV. "The RFP is starting over. Communication has a very strict process."
So, it's back to square one for the bidding process that's taken nearly a year, and Vero Beach residents packed council chambers to voice their opinions.
“This dream that this community has worked so hard on is stalled," said one business owner.
“The process doesn’t look too cool right now," voiced another.
"I just don't see how even a winner would want to win this way," one resident said at the podium.
“It looks like a soccer game where someone got kicked in the shin," said another.
Many residents spoke in support of the City's decision to start over.
"There’s too many gray areas that you heard today," said one resident.
SuDa declined to comment on the City's decision, but Clearpath's president, Randy Lloyd, told Hussey he was pleased with the decision to disqualify SuDa but disappointed at the decision to start the whole process over.
"I was hopeful if they disqualified SuDa that they would have gone to our proposal," said Lloyd, "I spent three years in this process, considerable time and resources to put this initial proposal together."
Lloyd said he wasn't yet sure if he would resubmit a proposal.
"I'm going to need to spend time with partners and lawyers to determine if we’re going to take another shot and if it’s worth our time and effort," said Lloyd.
Don Urgo, President of third place candidate Vista Blue Venture partners, released the following statement to WPTV:
"Vista Blue Venture Partners are grateful for the City Council's decision to disqualify SuDa/CREC Capital as the designated master developer of the Three Corners Project. The facts presented concerning the correspondent's violations and the Colliers/CREC Capital relationship warranted the disqualifications."
Urgo also heralded City Council's decision not to appoint Clearpath as the new master developer and thought the decision to start the process over was fair.
"It had clearly been compromised," said Urgo. "In my correspondence with the City, I followed the public rules and addressed comments to Mr. O'Brien at all time. My wife Carol and I have been permanent residents of Vero Beach for the past 20 years and deeply appreciate the what we call the three 'c's: the special culture, character and charisma of a truly unique community."
Cotugno said Thursday he hopes the City's transparency regains the trust of those he serves.
"For me, it's paramount that citizens have confidence in their local city government. It's most important that they trust us and that the process has integrity," said Cotugno.
So far, the City has not set a deadline for the new bid process.