Less than two weeks after former Mayor Laura Jordan began her six-year prison sentence for a bribery conviction tied to the project, Richardson City Council voted unanimously April 22 to direct City Manager Don Magner to tell developer JP-KBS Holdings LLC that incentives related to the yet-to-be-fully-realized Palisades planned development project are voided.
“Since the federal convictions renders the economic development agreement void, we have not and will not make any payments associated with the agreement,” Magner said in a news release.
The background
Promised as a multimillion-dollar destination composed of retail, restaurants and a hotel, the 79-acre Palisades project also was intended to include 600 multifamily units and a subdivision of single-family homes. The project is located on the west side of US 75 at Palisades Boulevard.
At the time the project was proposed in 2012, city ordinances prohibited apartments on the property. Over the opposition of numerous residents, then-Mayor Laura Jordan, at the time known as Laura Maczka, backed a number of rezoning proposals from then-managing partner of JP-KBS Mark Jordan before the project was ultimately approved to include multifamily in 2014.
After a lengthy investigation, juries found Mark and Laura Jordan, who married in 2017, guilty of bribery and wire fraud in connection to offerings of money, gifts, sex and jobs Mark Jordan offered to the then-mayor in exchange for the votes and economic incentives that allowed for the construction of the project.
What you need to know
The up to $47 million in incentives the city intends to void are related to reimbursements for construction and infrastructure expenses related to the project. According to the news release, the terms of the agreement were “entered into under good faith” at the time and that city officials were “unaware of the facts that later came to light in the federal criminal cases.”
