FORT SMITH — The city is looking to wash its hands of some property that’s been the focal point of controversy for years.
The city has put up for sale 68.16 acres in the Chaffee Crossing area, according to a Tuesday news release. This includes a rectangular piece at 7709 Taylor Ave. running east and west and is comprised of two tracts totaling 5.26 acres, as well as a larger, abutting 62.9 acres between Taylor Avenue, Ward Avenue and Roberts Boulevard that was to have become the River Valley Sport Complex.
“At this point, the best thing to do is offer the land for sale and recoup whatever public monies we can that were lost when RVSC failed,” City Administrator Carl Geffken said in the release.
“Our RFP (Request for Proposals) last year, seeking a contractor or developer to step in and finish the sports complex or do something similar, attracted one proposal. We worked with that party for several months but just couldn’t help them develop their proposal into something viable for both them and the city.”
The developers of the sports complex, former state Sen. Jake Files and partner Lee Webb, approached the city in 2014 looking to build a tournament-quality complex of eight ball fields, as well as amenities, to draw in softball and baseball teams from around the region to Fort Smith as an economic boost to the area.
The Fort Chaffee Redevelopment Authority donated the land to the city, with the city budgeting $1.6 million to the project. Files and Webb were to complete the project with donations of work, material and labor. However, they went on to miss deadlines city directors continued to extend until the end of 2016, at which point they expressed their desire to withdraw from the project.
The board voted to terminate the agreement with Files and Webb in February 2017. The pair spent $1.08 million of the city’s money on the project. The directors also demanded Files and Webb return the $26,945 in state General Improvement Fund grant money they received from the city for infrastructure work.
Files pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court on Jan. 29, 2018, to charges of wire fraud and money laundering in connection with the grant money. He also pleaded guilty to bank fraud in connection with pledging a forklift he didn’t own as collateral for a bank loan. He began serving an 18-month sentence the following August. Files moved from a federal prison in El Reno, Okla., to a halfway house in Little Rock earlier this year in preparation for a Nov. 11 scheduled release.
Should the complex property be sold, Geffken said Tuesday the money would go back into the capital improvement plan budget for the Parks and Recreation Department.
Geffken said work done on the complex property includes lights and light poles, as well as some fencing the city will look to reuse. Two buildings were built as well, although the city believes there are issues with them. It’s also possible the city will put material from the buildings up for auction, including bricks and lumber.
The complex was originally to be finished in 2015, Geffken said. The city is using the smaller parcel of land for storage.
Legal notice of the offer for sale of the properties appeared in Tuesday’s edition of the Times Record in Fort Smith, according to the release, and the request for bids has been posted on the city’s website on the purchasing department page. Sealed bids are due no later than 2 p.m. Nov. 5 at Fort Smith Municipal Offices, 623 Garrison Ave., Room 512.
Geffken said the city doesn’t have to accept the bids once it gets them.