I met with a resident who asked me about the right of first refusal agreement that the University of Iowa has with St. Andrew Church that Amanda Whitmer mentioned at the Forum on Tuesday evening. This is best described by a letter University Heights received from St. Andrew Church in 2009. Here is a link to that letter.February 20, 2009 Letter to City of University Heights
The gist of that agreement is that if any other developer would make an offer for the St. Andrew Property, which the Church feels is acceptable, then the Church would have an obligation to go to the University of Iowa to see if they would want to match the offer and purchase the property. The University of Iowa declined to match Mr. Maxwell’s offer in 2007 when the Church went to the University officials. Would they do so now since we have had the floods of 2008 in Iowa City and the University now owns the University Athletic Club plus the land north of the church? I would expect this high and dry land adjacent to their other properties to be desirable to them.
Since Mr. Maxwell has dropped all his contingencies and will own the property if the Church decides to sell then I doubt if the University will need to be asked. However, is pretty clear to me that there is little chance of any other private developer being able to purchase this land before the University would step in and purchase.
