Scranton, PA – Another prospective buyer has emerged for the closed East Scranton Intermediate School, which the Scranton School Board agreed two months ago to sell to a Jewish community from Brooklyn, N.Y.
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A company led by city businessman Paul Mansour is willing to pay $500,000 for the Quincy Avenue building, $100,000 more than Nadvorna Hasidic group whose offer the board approved unanimously Aug. 28, attorney Matthew Barrett said. “We don’t perceive it as being late in the day,” Mr. Barrett said of the timing of Madison School Properties LLC’s proposal. “The opportunity is presenting itself. It’s a great building, and we think $500,000 is a great price for the school,” he said.
Whether the School Board can entertain the offer will likely fall to Lackawanna County Court.
District solicitor Harry McGrath said “My position is, we have an offer of $400,000 and acceptance by the board, so we have a contract,” Mr. McGrath said. To derail the sale, Mr. McGrath said, Madison School Properties would have to demonstrate $400,000 does not represent fair market value for the property, which the district had appraised a few years ago at $350,000 to $375,000.
Mr. Barrett said that’s precisely what his client will argue. “We don’t think that is a reasonable price,” he said of the $400,000 offer. “We would hope the court would take into account that my client is willing to pay more in determining whether that is a reasonable price.”
Mr. Mansour, owner of the Carlisle Group, a computer software developer, said he didn’t make an offer for the property earlier because he didn’t know it was for sale.
what is not true? if he is a real developer, he would have prob. known about this property months ago and not be a johnny come lately. scranton IS a pretty depressed city, with vacant properties. I spent YEARS there in yeshivah, i know what im talking about. lastly, mansour is either jewish or arab, either way it is very possible he doesnt want chassidim in scranton.
ps- if he is jewish and not religious is lashon hara muttar on a tinok shenishbah?
ANON 4:20
NOT TRUE. READ UP ON YOUR LAW. (AND IF MR MANSOUR IS JEWISH AND RELIGOUS, READ UP ON YOUR HALACHA!)
I learned in Scranton and the place is pretty dead, from a business/real estate perspective. I’ll bet that this is just an attempt to keep chassidim out of Scranton. If this Mansour is an active developer who is actually in position to make money on this property, he would have been very aware of a sale of a large building in the area.
Nadvorna should move to Cleveland.
Cleveland darf a bissil varmkeit
In big business, this happens all the time. A company announces that it has agreed to be bought by another company, and then all of a sudden, some third company steps in with a better offer, sparking a takeover battle. Sometimes, the original prospective buyer sweetens its offer and the deal goes through as scheduled, only with somewhat better terms for the seller. Other times, the seller switches gears and ends up selling to the third company — but there is usually a break-up fee clause written into its agreement with the initial buyer, assuring that buyer that it will be compensated if its deal doesn’t go through. Usually, the new buyer who steps in at the last minute ends up paying the break-up fee (which in a corporate merger could be millions of dollars), on top of the purchase price — but figures the deal is still worth it. I wonder if the Nadvornas get a break-up fee (possibly worth thousands of dollars) if the district backs out of the original deal and goes with the higher offer?
anything that a chasidic group should not come there.
In real estate,if it ain’t in writing it ain’t woit nuttin.
To my mind, these people were planning a whole new community, and it was common knowledge for months already. Sounds like Mr. mansour wants to make a profit on their situation by probably flipping the building. Unless he’s planning on donating it to Nadvorna, I say this treads very seriously on the line of “V’asisa Hayashar v’hatov.”