Construction on Joplin master developer's Amarillo project could begin later this year

Today's Amarillo Globe-News offers an update on the progress of Wallace-Bajjali on a $113 million development project in that city.

Wallace-Bajjali, a Sugar Land, Texas, firm has been hired by the city of Joplin as the master developer for the $800 million project of renovating the area of the city struck by the May 22, 2011, tornado:

Nearly two years since the city approved a $113 million project to be built in partnership with master developer Wallace Bajjali Development Partners, a vacant block downtown seems the most visible progress.

“There’s a lot of people doing a lot of things right now, but it’s not visible,” City Manager Jarrett Atkinson said.

A timetable for the beginning of construction on the project was given in the article, but it included a number of drastic changes from the original vision that had been presented to Amarillo city officials.

Sources of private money the developer will bring to the table have changed without fundamentally altering the deal on the city’s side of the ledger, city officials said.But Wallace Bajjali has dropped plans to raise $42.5 million for the hotel through a federal EB-5 program that provides potential permanent residency to foreign investors who plow money into job-creating projects, Wallace and Costa Bajjali said.The hotel financing plan also no longer includes New Market Tax Credits, a federal program designed to funnel investor money into community-improvement projects, they said.Instead, the money mix will include a more conventional bank loan, Bajjali said.The EB-5 visa and new market tax credits programs “were creative ways to finance when banks were not lending a few years ago,” Bajjali said. “A traditional loan is a much better loan.”Wallace Bajjali also has changed the hotel developer it will bring in to build and operate the hotel, Wallace confirmed.