Well, at least it was entertaining for five days.
Wayne County scratched a seemingly wacky Texas doctor's top Packard Plant bid on Wednesday afternoon because she didn't confirm a $2-million down payment is coming, Christine MacDonald reports for The Detroit News.
They have failed to perform,” Wayne County’s Chief Deputy Treasurer David Szymanski said.
Szymanski is now in negotiations with Chicago-area developer Bill Hults who was the second highest bidder at $6,037,000.
Szymanski acknowledged Tuesday he was concerned about the legitimacy of the winning bid after Jill Van Horn’s staff issued a three-page statement late Tuesday that likened Detroit's potential to hydroelectric power.
Dr. Jill Van Horn, a family physician, said Monday via an aide that she'd build modular homes and offices at the long-vacant auto plant site.
She wanted 30 days to pay the full online foreclosure auction price of $6,038,000, the deputy county treasurer says.
Wednesday article:
Jill Van Horn, the Texas family doctor who appears to have won the tax-foreclosure auction for the Packard Plant released a statement Tuesday that likened Detroit’s potential to hydroelectric power and discussed her "prophecy" that was to "resurrect Detroit by providing education, jobs and vocational training to the city’s residence, simultaneously unplugging the financial arteries of the city.”
Christine MacDonald reports in The Detroit News that Wayne county officials acknowledge they’re concerned about the statement, and they expect to see money Wednesday from Van Horn.
“It is the process that allows us to transform the lake from a canoeing and fishing kind of place into an energy producing kind of place,” reads a three-page statement from Dr. Jill Van Horn’s staff that was released to the media on Tuesday. “Detroit’s assets, like energy, also have dormant value.”
Van Horn won an online auction Friday by bidding $6 million for the largely dormant and crumbling plant on Detroit’s east side. It was a figure that astounded observers because the property could have been bought a month earlier for its unpaid taxes, $1 million.
She announced Monday she wants to build modular homes and offices at the plant. She has yet to come up with the money, but Tuesday’s statement assures that won’t be an issue.
In fact, if county officials doubt her means, she and her investors “are prepared to travel from Texas to Detroit and sit down the with county and make an offer for every vacant, abandoned and dilapidated apartment building within Detroit,” the statement reads.
