Empty Rheem Lot, Part of Unauthorized Trotter and Onoda Deal, For Sale at $4.8MM
Updated: Sep 7
The empty lot adjacent to the Rheem Theater is for sale for $4.8MM.
The lot was part of a development swap that Mayor Trotter and Vice Mayor Onoda brokered behind-the-scenes without council authorization, costing taxpayers over $35,000 in unauthorized legal fees and conferring what now appears to be over $2.8MM in development rights for a four-story apartment building that would otherwise violate all sorts of the town's development rules and standards.
The empty lot was last listed for sale in 2015, before development rights, for $2MM.
Read our original backroom-deal story and the unauthorized legal-fee article.
Although [mis]characterized at the time as a fortuitous and timely "coincidental submission" to develop the lot by the land owner, it's now clear the landowner has no intent to develop the land itself - it was listed for sale at the $2.8MM increased price just months after Trotter cut the deal.
