Real estate committee refers proposed sale of former Sylvia School to full council amid procurement concerns

The Fall River Real Estate Committee voted to refer to the full City Council, with a positive recommendation, an order authorizing the mayor to execute a purchase-and-sale agreement and, upon satisfaction of contingencies, a quitclaim deed conveying the former Sylvia School to Thomas Alva Edison Building LLC.

Attorney Matthew Thomas, special counsel for the city of Fall River, told the committee the order before the committee would authorize the corporation counsel to draft a purchase-and-sale agreement that incorporates the development benchmarks and conditions from the request for proposals, and that the mayor would be authorized to execute the deed once contingencies are satisfied. “The order that was submitted is that the mayor is hereby authorized to execute a purchase and sale agreement in a form acceptable to the corporation counsel for the sale of the former Sylvia School… to Thomas Alva Edison Building LLC,” Thomas said, reading the proposed order.

Several councilors voiced concerns about the procurement process and the committee’s review steps. Councilor Kadeem said he was “a little frustrated with the process” and warned that if the city did not follow the competitive procedures set out in Massachusetts procurement law, the city could face bid protests that could jeopardize the project. “The bidding process is established by Massachusetts General Law… it’s supposed to be a competitive open bid process,” Kadeem said.

Kadeem and other committee members highlighted that the RFP evaluation included a matrix with objective criteria and that reviewers gave varying scores for financial capacity; multiple reviewers marked the financial-capacity category as “0” (insufficient information), while other reviewers marked the category higher, producing a composite score the councilor viewed as inconsistent with the RFP’s documentation requirements. Councilor Kadeem said the RFP required firms to provide two years of financial statements, lender prequalification commitments and letters of reference to receive a “highly advantageous” rating; he said much of that documentation was not present in the review file.

Attorney Thomas and other members said the administration will tighten pre-bid explanations of the review matrix and that corporation counsel will prepare the purchase-and-sale agreement for review by the council. Committee members also discussed whether the previous surplus vote and the series of administrative steps satisfy the required two-thirds council vote for the sale of city property. Thomas said his understanding was that the earlier surplus/disposition votes created a continuing authority that allowed the matter to proceed, but some councilors asked for clarification before final conveyance.

The committee’s recorded motion was phrased as a referral to the full council with a positive recommendation; it was seconded and the chair declared it approved on an affirmative vote. The order text in the meeting referenced a purchase price in the purchase-and-sale language; the transcript contains inconsistent figures: at one point the staff report referenced $250,000, and the read order text includes an amount rendered in the record as "200 and, $5,000." Committee members noted the difference; no final sale price was confirmed on the record at the committee meeting.

Next steps recorded in the meeting: corporation counsel will draft the purchase-and-sale agreement incorporating RFP benchmarks and contingencies; the full City Council will consider the referral; and the administration was instructed to clarify procurement procedures and reviewer instructions for future RFPs. The committee did not execute a purchase-and-sale agreement or conveyance at this meeting.