Port of South Louisiana won’t release documents officials say justify $445 million Avondale deal

Facing scrutiny for its $445 million proposed purchase of the former Avondale shipyard, officials from the Port of South Louisiana have refused to make public the appraisal documents the say would justify a price more than seven times higher than what the current owner paid for it four years ago.

Citing “active negotiations,” port attorney Richard Pressler said late Monday in response to a public records request that the port, which is a state-sponsored agency, would not turn over a site appraisal that Executive Director Paul Matthews has said he relied on in agreeing to buy the site from T. Parker Host.

The port announced on Jan. 12 that its board of commissioners had voted to buy Avondale, now known as the Avondale Global Gateway, after months of talks between Matthews and executives with the company. News of the massive deal surprised the leaders of the state’s other major ports and Gov. John Bel Edwards, long a booster of redeveloping the 254-acre site.

The vote of the nine-member board of commissioners took place at a special meeting on Jan. 9 that wasn’t listed along with other meetings on the port’s website. The meeting’s agenda, which was emailed to commissioners along with other public bodies and some members of the media, didn’t provide any indication that the board would be discussing a major potential investment during an executive session behind closed doors.

Jobs, bonds

Matthews has said in recent days that the deal would make jobs Avondale’s top priority and that it would boost its ability to attract federal dollars. He said the port plans to pay for it by issuing debt through the state Bond Commission.

But since it was announced, critics have questioned how the massive site, which sits in the jurisdiction of the Port of New Orleans and does not have an anchor tenant, could justify the purchase price.

T. Parker Host executives bought the property for $60 million in 2018. Last year, they said they invested $150 million to deal with environmental issues and turn the former shipyard into a multimodal transit hub. But the pandemic and other delays have slowed their progress.

At a legislative committee hearing on Monday, state Sen. Patrick Connick, R-Marrero, whose district includes Avondale, asked Matthews why the port would be paying such a high price for the site given that T. Parker Host bought it for so much less just a few years ago.

Matthews pointed to an independent appraisal the port commissioned from Baton Rouge real estate firm Cook, Moore, Davenport & Associates, saying their valuation was the basis for the price.

“All of the information is within the appraisal itself,” Matthews told Connick.

Connick said early Tuesday that he had still not seen the report.

“The appraisal needs to be made public if they intend to seek help from the bond commission,” Connick said in a text message.

In declining to provide the appraisal and other information about the acquisition, port spokesperson Micah Cormier has said the port has a “non-disclosure agreement” with T. Parker Host, which is worried that unspecified “trade secrets” and other sensitive commercial information might be disclosed if the appraisal is made public.

Cormier added that the port had begun “a period of due diligence to gather further information on the property, such as a feasibility study and an environmental assessment.”

He said they didn’t intend to make any additional information about the deal public until mid-February at the earliest.

“Port of South Louisiana’s Bond Counsel intends to submit its bond application in mid-February seeking approval at the March Bond Commission meeting,” Cormier said in an emailed statement. “At that time, the records associated with that bond application will be subject to public records law.”

Do exemptions apply?

Experts in Louisiana public-records law on Tuesday raised questions about whether the exemptions to the required release of this type of information claimed by the port’s lawyer would apply.

Lori Mince, a New Orleans-based attorney specializing in public records law, noted that the law says explicitly that the “active negotiations” exemption no longer applies once a public body has voted on the proposal. The Port of South Louisiana board voted unanimously for the deal during the special meeting in early January, and the port announced it three days later.

She also questioned whether the port complied with public meetings law when they voted for the deal.

“There was nothing on that agenda (for the Jan. 9 special board meeting) that could have indicated what they actually talked about in that meeting,” she noted, referring to the special meeting notice the port emailed on Jan. 6.

According to a port staff member familiar with procedures who was not authorized to speak publicly, only Matthews and board chairman Ryan Burks were aware ahead of time that the Avondale deal would be discussed in the closed executive session.

They had expected the presentation of the deal and the $445 million price tag would be only “informational” and that the nine commissioners would then take time to mull it over before taking a public vote.

But the board decided to move right away and went out of executive session, added it to their agenda and voted unanimously, the staff member said.

Steven Procopio, president of the Public Affairs Research Council of Louisiana, a public policy watchdog, said the port’s procedures appeared to be flawed.

“If the port commission didn’t properly advertise the planned discussion at its meeting, that not only would violate Louisiana’s open meetings law, but it also would deny the public an important opportunity to weigh in on the project,” he said.

Procopio said the merits of the deal and its price tag should be a public discussion.

“Transparency isn’t just a box you check; it provides the trust and understanding needed to conduct government business successfully,” he said.