Westminster hit with back-to-back land sales lawsuits

It’s not every day that a municipality gets hit with two lawsuits within a span of a month involving the sale of land. Is it coincidence or just what?

Cross Currents

Two di erent developers are involved with separate parcels of land with one located in the New Downtown and the other at the edge of e Promenade at the northeast corner of 104th Avenue and Westminster Boulevard. e city was to sell land it owned to each developer.

e New Downtown site involves a large o ce developer, Schnitzer West, which planned to build two seven story o ce towers. Later the plans evolved into a single eight story Class A o ce building. At one time, Schnitzer was pursuing 650,000 square feet of o ce development on the two lots which they wanted to purchase from the city.

e other site involved developer Rozzi Capital which was planning to purchase 7.6 acres at the northeast corner of 104th Avenue and Westmin- ster Boulevard. e proposed development was for a hotel and retail next to the Westin Hotel. In both cases, the developers are suing the City of Westminster for supposedly backing out of selling the respective parcels. e city council approved the land uses for all the parcels which provided a fair degree of exibility. e city put itself in the role of a land developer selling nished lots to a variety of development companies.

What’s going on?

I have always found it somewhat awkward for a city to be selling land to a developer and at the same time having nal review and say on the details of the proposed development. As you are probably aware, Westminster bought the former Westminster Mall property, tore down the mall buildings and constructed most of the public improvements, such as the water lines, sewer lines, storm sewer lines and streets.

I am not privy to the behind the scenes negotiating between city staff and each developer. I do know that the Schnitzer deal had been in the mill for approximately three years, which