Fort Pierce officials want Brightline now, but passed on an earlier deal to get a station

I'll write it before someone else says it: Columnists are the Tom Bradys of Monday morning quarterbacking. With the benefit of hindsight, we can ace any eye exam.

Still, I wonder if some Fort Pierce residents might be looking back on June 13, 2019, with some pangs of regret.

That was the day the Fort Pierce City Commission, serving in its capacity as the Fort Pierce Redevelopment Agency, considered two separate proposals for developing 7 acres at the former H.D. King Power Plant site.

One of the proposals, submitted by Audubon Development, called for construction of a high-rise hotel, condominiums, other housing and retail space. The other proposal, containing some of the same elements plus a train station, was submitted by Brightline, then doing business as Virgin Trains USA.

Audubon said it was 'ready to go'

It wasn't an easy decision for commissioners. They spent nearly three hours hearing presentations from each side, listening to public comment and then discussing the decision among themselves.

In the end, the commissioners unanimously picked Audubon to develop King's Landing, a $140 million project some believe will transform downtown Fort Pierce. When it's built.

Four and a half years later, there's not much to see at the King's Landing site, between Indian River Drive and Second Street near the Fort Pierce City Marina.

Dale Matteson, Audubon's president and chief executive officer, said it took about 10 months to remove 1,500 tons of buried concrete left behind after the power plant was demolished in 2008. Permitting for the project was also time consuming.

The company is currently adding about 500 dump truck loads of fill dirt at the site, which Matteson said should be completed next month.

Once the fill dirt is in place, Matteson has said ground-level and below-ground infrastructure will take about 18 months to complete. Then will come "vertical construction," which he predicted would take about three years.

Slow progress on King's Landing

The slow pace of progress on King's Landing probably wasn't what commissioners envisioned when they chose Audubon over Virgin. In fact, during their deliberations, they repeatedly stressed Audubon's shovel-readiness as being one of the key factors that helped them make their selection.

During his presentation to commissioners, Matteson said several times Audubon was "ready to go," while Virgin's commitment to build the train station wasn't yet set in stone.

"This is a game-changer for the city," Matteson said of his project. "The time is now. Let's get going."

Virgin officials said during the meeting they were caught off guard by the city's request for proposals. Then, as now, they had not committed to building a train station in Fort Pierce.

Virgin/Brightline is bound by a legal agreement that says the company must build a station in Martin or St. Lucie County within five years of launching passenger service between West Palm Beach and Orlando. But company officials weren't ready to say then Fort Pierce would definitely get the station.

That clearly frustrated some commissioners. They noted, with some chagrin, the train company could wait until 2024 before making its decision.

'Leap of faith' seemed daunting

Rusty Roberts, Virgin's vice president of government affairs, asked commissioners to take "a leap of faith" by granting development rights to his company anyway.

Commissioners weren't ready to do that.

"Time is of the essence, is where I'm going with this," then-Commissioner Reginald Sessions said. "Audubon, to some degree, gives us a little light at the end of the tunnel, in terms of their schedule."

Then-Commissioner Thomas Perona questioned why Martin County was being considered as a potential station site, since it had filed a lawsuit to block the train company's plans.

"If I knew for a moment that a station was on the table, I'd have a hard time walking away from it," Perona said. " ... I'm very disappointed in the fact that I don't have a train station to consider today."

Other commissioners said pretty much the same.

"I had hoped the train station would be something much more in concrete," Mayor Linda Hudson said. "I feel like we're dealing with something that's so far in the future, it's still being debated. And then we've got a group that is ready to go."

Hudson compared a development contract to a marriage.

"I felt like if we were going to get married, we ought to have a ring today ― and that would be the train station," Hudson said.

Commissioners made a popular choice

The crowd at the meeting, most of whom seemed to be pro-Audubon, erupted in applause when all five commissioners voted to negotiate a contract to build King's Landing.

Now, of course, the roles are reversed. Brightline finally launched its West Palm Beach-Orlando service earlier this year, then made a request for proposals for a Treasure Coast station site. Following the Dec. 22 deadline for submitting proposals, the company is expected to announce a decision in the first quarter of 2024.

As was the case in 2019, Fort Pierce remains in competition with Stuart for the station site. Audubon has offered land at King's Landing as a potential location, but it would seem, in hindsight, like having a pre-approved station site could have given Fort Pierce a significant advantage.

When I asked Hudson about the 2019 decision a few days ago, she expressed no regrets. She said the proposal Virgin submitted lacked detail and was contingent upon a commitment the company (still) hasn't made.

"It was unclear what they were planning to do," Hudson said last Tuesday. "It was too long a wait to find out what they were going to do with it."

It all looks different in hindsight

I'm not suggesting Brightline will look unfavorably on Fort Pierce's bid as a result of what was decided in 2019. If the company wanted to act out of spite, it could just as easily penalize the Martin County station supporters over the county's lawsuit that led to the Treasure Coast station commitment.

If Brightline has shown our community anything, it's that the company is made up of business people who make business decisions. If company officials view Fort Pierce as a better station location to support their business plan, then that's where the new station will be.

Fort Pierce commissioners made a decision based on the best information they had available at the time. Even so, it's interesting how different the choices look now than they did back then.

This column reflects the opinion of Blake Fontenay. Contact him via email at blake.fontenay@tcpalm.com or at 772-232-5424.

This article originally appeared on Treasure Coast Newspapers: Did Fort Pierce miss its big chance at a Brightline station years ago?