The first hearing in a Music Row property seizure case was postponed Thursday when a city agency decided instead to ask a Nashville judge to consider its proposal to settle the dispute.
The Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency asked to delay a hearing scheduled for Friday morning so it could formally introduce a proposal to divide Music Row business owner Joy Ford's property in half.
"We would really like to work this matter out," Phil Ryan, the agency's executive director, said in a statement. "We believe this compromise would do that, and we believe in the offer so much, we are willing to amend our court pleadings to incorporate it."
The proposal is meant to end a dispute that has halted a $100 million plan from a Houston firm, Lionstone Group, to redevelop a three-acre plot on the Music Row roundabout.
This morning, the agency's lawyers will meet with Scott Bullock, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit firm that has been advising Ford, to discuss the compromise.
A resolution isn't likely to result immediately from that meeting.
Ford has not received a copy of the settlement proposal, which was faxed to Bullock's office in Arlington, Va., two weeks ago, and she probably will have questions about it before responding, Bullock said.
The first hearing in the case is now scheduled for Sept. 12.
The city's court filing was made less than a day before lawyers for the MDHA were scheduled to ask Circuit Judge Barbara Haynes to approve a petition that would have let the agency seize Ford's building at 23 Music Circle E., and its 9,000-square-foot lot, for $900,000 in compensation.
Earlier this year, the MDHA agreed to acquire the property for Lionstone and resell it to the firm at cost. Now, the agency says Lionstone would need the parking lot in the rear of Ford's property only. Ford would receive $455,000 for the lot and be given lifetime parking, free of charge, in a garage planned as part of the new development.
Ford has fought the petition, saying she has no interest in leaving the property.
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