Who Got Squeezed Out

Published: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 12:59 PM PDT

E-MAIL STORY

With all the details that went into this story today by my colleague Will Carless, there wasn't room to explain another interesting detail of the Valencia Business Park saga.

Carless' story focused on the fact that the development project, which had to be put out to bid again because of questions surrounding the original bid, was just re-awarded to the same developer, Pacific Development Partners. The twist: This time PDP's purchase price on the bid is nearly $1 million less for the land. (The story explains why that's important.)

Anyways, there's another storyline to the deal, too.

The Southeastern Economic Development Corp., the redevelopment arm of the city of San Diego responsible for overseeing the development, and its president, Carolyn Y. Smith, have been sued for breach of contract and fraud by a local business that claims it was duped into abiding by a legal settlement that SEDC and Smith never planned on fulfilling.

You can read about the details of that deal in this special report we published last year and in this copy of the lawsuit. The suit is currently in mediation.