ESCANABA — The future of the former jail and Delta County Chamber of Commerce properties remained uncertain Thursday, after three development groups decided to join forces in an attempt to keep local control and the city’s mayor declared the adhoc committee established to research development proposals a failure.

“I don’t know how to put this. I’m not afraid to admit this that that committee was an absolute, complete failure,” Mayor Mark Ammel told the council Thursday.

Many of the issues related to the committee stemmed from confusion about the role or necessity of the committee in the first place. According to the original request for quote, the applicants were to be reviewed by City Manager Patrick Jordan, who was then to present the information and a recommendation to the council. Instead, an adhoc committee was formed to review the potential developers, a special meeting to hear from the developers was held and a public survey was issued.

The committee members had already completed a blind rubric scoring the developers before the issue with the RFQ was discovered.

“We abandoned our ability to vote. So everything that we scored, we all agreed was absolutely irrelevant. This recommendation comes strictly from Mr. Jordan himself. The committee was an abject failure,” said Ammel.

Jordan’s recommendation Thursday was to award the sites to the Red Deer Lodge Development Team — the only developer interested in the site from Lower Michigan — which aims to construct a Home2 hotel by Hilton on the jail site and a mixed-use development composed of condos and retail spaces on the site of the former Chamber building.

Jordan’s decision to recommend Red Deer Lodge was consistent with the scoring from the adhoc committee, which ranked the project the highest. However, he took heat from the council for the decision after stating he had a partial committee formed prior to the election of the current city council and the adhoc committee established by Ammel.

“I don’t arrive at a decision like this in a vacuum. I’ve spent years doing this work, educating myself in this work and the committee, initially, was a committee of a few people that I had kind of assembled and then the election took place and you came here and I asked you to go ahead and do that,” Jordan told Ammel.

Jordan later reframed the committee as “a discussion in the hallway about how do we arrive at a group of people to review” potential developers.

While Jordan argued during his recommendation that the Red Deer Lodge Development Team was an experienced developer and awarding them the project an opportunity to how developers from outside the area that Escanaba was an attractive spot to do business, the idea of a developer that wasn’t local drew ire from some in attendance — including the three other developers seeking the properties.

“The North Shore Marine Terminal, the North Shore Flats and the Terrace Bay Hotel have come to an agreement which allows each of us to accomplish the most important parts of our individual proposals and keep this downtown development project local,” said Jarred Drown, of the Terrace Bay Hotel, who spoke during public comment with representatives from the other development groups standing with him.

Drown stressed the group’s proposals were not new, but copies of the group’s new plans being distributed show each of the developers have scaled back their projects significantly to share the space. The Terrace Bay Hotel has scrapped plans for a second hotel on the Chamber site, but maintained plans for a dinner cruise ship and a Hampton Inn on the site of the former jail. The Chamber property has been claimed by Northshore Flats for the creation of a mixed-use and condominium development, but the developer has eliminated a planned condominium complex on the jail site. North Shore Marine claimed the shoreline, consistent with its original plan to expand its ship repair operation, and has guaranteed a public access path that would cross part of its existing property.

Giving the property to the local developers, however, raised issues of its own. Whether or not the city could legally “move the goal post” by considering a new development this late in the process was a concern, and Escanaba does not currently have a city attorney to consult for clarification.

Council Member Tyler DuBord raised concerns that making any decisions on the properties would be premature without legal counsel and felt it was necessary to at least consider the surveys filled out by more than 1,100 residents. According to those surveys, residents preferred the original plan submitted by the Terrace Bay Hotel. The new joint plan was not considered in the survey.

“You’re jumping the gun. We’re moving too fast. We have to make the best decision for the community, for Escanaba. I do not want to see another Proxima. I do not want to see another dead property sitting there for how many years before something is done and empty promises,” he said, before moving to postpone awarding any developer the properties.

No date was set to revisit the issue, but DuBord suggested the county ask the county prosecutor to serve as legal counsel as the city moves forward.