FortBendNow.com

Updated: Johnson Development Corp., developer of projects including Sienna Plantation and Riverstone, has become project manager for Sugar Land’s Imperial Sugar redevelopment project, FortBendNow has learned.

Placed on hold for the past several months, the highly touted mixed use project is being managed by private equity firm Cherokee Investment Partners of Raleigh, N.C.. Cherokee partnered with the Texas General Land Office to purchase several hundred acres in and around Imperial Sugar Co.’s historic char house and sugar plant at U.S. 90A and State Highway 6.

Johnson has replaced Southern Land Co. as project developer, according to sources in the real estate community and City of Sugar Land. Neither officials with Cherokee nor Johnson could be reached Tuesday morning. However, City of Sugar Land sources said Cherokee was about to announce the new project manager.

Cherokee made that announcement a few hours later, saying it and Southern Land “have dissolved their development relationship” in the Imperial project.

As for Cherokee and Johnson, those two companies have partnered before, working on a 750-acre reclamation and redevelopment project at a former Texas Genco Power Plant in Webster.

As conceived by Cherokee in the spring of 2007, the Imperial project would include about 1,600 homes built on 234 acres, with 27 acres of commercial retail space, 36 acres of office or light industrial space and 46 acres devoted to a mix of uses surrounding the historic sugar plant.

However, a weakening market since then has caused Cherokee to pull away from the idea of developing as much commercial as originally envisioned, real estate sources say.

And now, Johnson Development likely will have the opportunity to put its vision and imprint on the project, FortBendNow has been told.

Sugar Land City Councilwoman Jacquie Chaumette said Monday the city will host a “town hall” meeting on June 25 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. to get an update from Cherokee on the status of the long-awaited project.

Unveiled in 2005, the Imperial Sugar redevelopment has drawn its share of controversy. In December of that year, developer W.C. Perry Land Development was suddenly dropped as development partner.

Company principal Will Perry filed suit against then-Sugar Land mayor David Wallace and two other former business partners 13 months later, saying they tried to collect on a fraudulent real estate commission contract.

Because of his business involvement with Perry, Sugar Land City Council and City Manager Allen Bogard requested that Wallace agree to a kind of political firewall in March 2005. Complying with that request, Wallace said he would “relinquish any and all involvement in all aspects of the Imperial Sugar property sale and re-development.”

But more than two years later, Wallace clashed with City Councilman Russell Jones, who accused the mayor of reneging on his pledge.

Wallace demanded the city’s first-ever “name-clearing hearing,” called in July of 2007. Under provisions of the city’s ethics ordinance, Wallace asked for an investigation by the city Ethics Panel into allegations of ethical conduct violations he says Jones made against him, involving the Imperial Sugar redevelopment project. The panel is made up of all members of City Council.

But after hearing testimony both from Wallace and Jones, the hearing ended in a tie, with neither side achieving the four votes that would have been required to either move the investigation forward or dismiss it.