- April 23, 2024
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After Flagler County bought the former Sears building on Palm Coast Parkway in late 2018 for $1.125 million, county staff arrived and found rainwater streaming down its interior walls — stymieing plans to turn it into a Sheriff's Office substation and prompting the county to threaten legal action against the parties involved in the sale.
"We will pursue the owner and the engineering company for the balance to completely make the county whole."
— JERRY CAMERON, Flagler County administrator
The county is removing Parkside Realty agent Margaret Sheehan-Jones from future litigation, but will pursue sellers James and Adre’a McIntyre, as well as Universal Engineering Services, the engineering firm that inspected the structure, County Administrator Jerry Cameron said during an Oct. 5 County Commission meeting.
"Out of the three entities that were held accountable for the county receiving the building in substandard condition, Parkside Realty and the agent, Margaret Sheehan Jones, are the only ones to date that have made an effort to make the county whole on that transaction," Cameron said. "The other two have not."
The Sears building was the second building the county bought and tried to use for the Sheriff's Office only to find out that the structure was plagued by water intrusion and mold. In June 2018, the sheriff and his staff evacuated their Operations Center building on State Road 100 — a renovated former hospital — after FCSO staff there fell ill and testing found mold and water seeping up under the flooring.
Sheehan-Jones had been the seller's agent for both buildings.
But after the county threatened litigation, Sheehan-Jones assisted with the $1 million purchase of the building from the county by a third party for transformation into a dance studio.
That sale has paid off most of the county's expenses associated with the structure.
"The closing of the sale on the Sears building took care of the largest portion of that, and with that we will be moving forward with removing Parkside realty and the agent Margaret Sheehan Jones from future litigation," Cameron said.
The county still needs to recover about $330,000 in expenses connected to the building, he said.
"We will pursue the owner and the engineering company for the balance to completely make the county whole," Cameron said.
