Although Mayoral Candidate Steven Kendrick has maintained the Augusta Economic Development Authority was not involved in the recently announced Regency Mall redevelopment project, a November 2021 letter seems to contradict that.
Obtained through an open records request, the letter to the State Charter Schools Commission of Georgia, written on the authority’s letterhead, states the Augusta Economic Development Authority represents Regency Mall’s owners as a client, though the letter declined to name the client or the site due to a confidentiality agreement then in force.
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However, in an interview earlier this week, Kendrick, who is the chairman of the development authority’s board, said the organization did not represent the project developer.
Kendrick’s announcement highlighted the development of the site with housing, a fitness center, grocery store, retail, a performing arts center and a charter school.
None of that will happen without the Georgia School for Innovation and Classics charter school — the pivotal piece to the whole puzzle.
“The owner/developer is making the entirety of the project contingent upon a high-quality public school choice (GSIC RE) proffering as a focal point of the project,” according to the report.
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Robert Buchwitz, who is chairman of both the Hephzibah City Commission and the governing board of the Georgia School of Innovation and the Classics, confirmed that if the school is not approved, the entire development will not happen.
“(The developer) will not do it without a quality school choice there,” Buchwitz said.
The school would be built in the former JB White’s, according to Kendrick’s letter. According to Buchwitz, mall owner Cardinale has agreed to build out the school and lease it back for a percentage of the revenues the school gets from the state.
“Charter school funding is based on enrollment figures, so as the enrollment grows so would the payments to Cardinale,” Buchwitz said.
Kendrick said he was unaware the project was contingent upon the school being approved, but he did say Buchwitz might have more information than he did.
The proposal for the charter school “was done in that way to provide some discretion on what we could provide to the state,” Kendrick said. “It was not done to try to mislead the state. It was to tell them I can’t tell you any more than I am telling you.”
He added, “When I wrote the letter back in November, we were in a different place. I had no intention to be misleading.”
According to Kendrick the wording was “bad wordsmithing” on his part.
“We don’t represent anyone,” he said. “That’s not really our role. The wording was poor and should have said that we were working with instead of representing.”
Kendrick said the Augusta Economic Development Authority does not have any official relationship to the Regency Mall project.
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Butch Gallop Jr., the Augusta Economic Development Authority treasurer, said Kendrick’s actions are unusual for a board chair.
“We have never heard or seen any letter like that,” Gallop said. “No chairman has ever acted like Kendrick and gone out and brought their own deal in.”
Gallop had a further negative response to Kendrick’s actions.
“Since Kendrick has been the chairman, there has been this renegade attitude with him running around thinking he is God. The staff bring the deals to us. It is not the other way around,” he said.
According to Gallop, normal procedure is for deals to go through Cal Wray, development authority president.
“And then, once it passes through Cal Wray, he brings it to the board, and then we will have discussion, and we will vote whether we’re going to participate. That’s how that works,” he said.
Joe Edge is the publisher for The Augusta Press. Reach him at joe.edge@theaugustapress.com
