Whenever I drive by the now-stalled Walgreens project in Burger Basin, I wonder how badly the City of Grass Valley got duped by the builder.
Beyond the painful delay, enough of a disappointment, did the city require a “surety bond“? In the construction trade, a performance, or surety bond, is routinely requested. It helps ensure that builder promises to do what he/she says.
With a surety bond, the city might at least collect some needed money down the road, rather than just watch the weeds grow again on the site of the former Jim Keil Chevrolet.
Meanwhile, I notice a new Walgreens has sprung up in the fast-growing Highway 49 corridor in North Auburn. What a debacle.
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I agree Surety bonds should always be required when it’s the tax payers money.
The City approved a poorly designed Walgreens project after 100′s of members of this community took the time to attend the review/approval meetings to say… “we want a better project, we want a project that is as nice as the other ones Walgreens has built in other towns”. THe City refused to listen and as the record shows Council memebr Dan Miller even called those citizens taking the time to attend the hearings “a bunch of whiners”. Such a show of disrespect for those making the effort to attend the public meetings and voice their concerns.
The Chicago developer said he would use local builders on the project, which he didn’t.
Now it turns out the City failed to get a performance bond from this out of state developer to make sure the required road improvements were built. A number of folks in the community begged the City to require a bond BEFORE the City issued the building permits.
The City, lead by the Mayor let them start construction without getting the performance bond first. There still is no bond. As some of us predicted… we are again getting screwed by the out of state developer. Too bad the Mayor and other council members refused to listen to the citizens that raised concerns during the review/approval process.
Now the big time developer wants to get bailed out by the City to build the road improvements and start the stalled project back up. Will the City once again scew over the citizens and help this out of state developer?