The city is pursuing a deal with the owners of One Riverfront Plaza to transfer the responsibility for the maintenance of the land around the building from the city to the owners of the building.

Because all of the land immediately surrounding the office building is actually city property, the city is responsible for its care and maintenance, and crews from the Public Services Department have been working outside the building in recent weeks.

City Administrator Jerre Bryant said the only land transferred to developer Tim Flannery to construct the office building was the land that the building sits upon. “Everything except the footprint of the building is city property,” said Bryant.

Before construction started on the office building and the parking garage, Flannery had acquired some of the land, and the city had acquired some of the land. Specifically, Flannery purchased the land where the former Stultz Electric building stood – approximately where One Riverfront Plaza is located now – and a separate lot located on the other side of Dana Court already belonged to him, according to Bryant. The city owned the rest of the land, which was comprised of Dana Court and another lot.

The city and Flannery struck a deal where all four parcels of land were combined with the city retaining ownership of all of the land, with the exception of the land where the office building now stands, which belongs to Flannery, said Bryant.

Bryant said he was not sure why the city and Flannery structured the deal this way, and Mayor Bruce Chuluda and City Council President Jim Violette were also unsure as to the reasoning behind the deal with Flannery.

Bryant said the city is using the pending sale of the building to open discussions about transferring some of the land around the building to the building’s owners. Bryant said the city is negotiating with Flannery to expand the footprint of land around the building to make the building’s owners responsible for its upkeep and maintenance.

“We are working to make the owner of the office building responsible to maintain that land,” said Bryant. “But for now, it’s city owned property.”

John Emerson, deputy director of the Public Works Department, said other than the initial work at the beginning of the season, the work being done at One Riverfront Plaza does not represent a large time commitment for the department. “After you get it up and running, it won’t be that bad,” said Emerson.

Initially, Emerson said the major work at the site involved laying mulch, planting shrubbery and mowing the grass around the building and the parking garage. Once all that work has been done, Emerson said there would only be a small amount of mowing to be done on a regular basis. He said he thought it would take a two-man mowing crew about 30 to 45 minutes every other week to do the job.

Flannery declined to discuss the pending sale of the building, but he did confirm that he and the city have had some discussions regarding the land around the building and are looking into transferring some of that land to the owner of the office building.

Bryant said the City Council is expected discuss the matter of the land around the office building at its next meeting, scheduled for July 11 at 7 p.m. in room 114 of Westbrook High School.

While Flannery still owns One Riverfront Plaza, he is in negotiations to sell the building. Neither Flannery nor the city would discuss those negotiations or name the potential buyer, but a letter released by the city as part of an informational package for the City Council’s June 1 meeting indicates Roebling Investment Company of Hackensack, N.J., is the company looking to purchase the building.

The discussions about the land surrounding the building are not the only ones the city has held with Flannery in connection with the possible sale of the building. Earlier this month, the City Council unanimously voted to approve a deal regarding additional parking spaces for the office building.

The new agreement approved by the council amends the city’s previous agreement with Flannery in regard to the parking garage next to the building and clears up questions raised by a 2002 letter from former Mayor Don Esty promising nearly half the spots in the “CVS” parking lot between Main Street and William Clarke Drive as dedicated parking for the office building.

The new agreement gives the owner of the building the right to lease 90 parking spaces from the city. The location of these spaces will be determined by the city. They are not limited to the CVS lot. They can be anywhere within a 1,000-foot radius of the building.

In addition, the agreement gives the owner of the building eight five-year options to extend the lease agreement for the parking garage after the expiration of the initial 20-year lease. It also gives the owner of the building the right to purchase the garage outright from the city once the 20-year lease expires.

In consideration, the new agreement calls for the owner of the office building to make an up-front payment of $250,000 to the city, and it commits Flannery to invest a minimum of $1 million in new development in downtown Westbrook in five years.