By David Madrid | The Republic | azcentral.com
Surprise and a company it partnered with to develop its downtown are in a legal battle over control of the property, and no one is talking publicly about the high-stakes dispute.
Surprise hit the developer, the Surprise Center Development Co., with a notice of default this summer. In response, the developer has filed a $101 million notice of claim, a precursor to filing a lawsuit, against the city.
The dispute centers around the length of time the developer has gone without making major improvement on its property. The developer was supposed to transform the mostly empty 625-acre property, about a square mile, surrounding the civic center “as quickly as possible,” the city asserts in legal documents.