"In my opinion it was extremely cheap or I wouldn't have boughtit," Chesrown tells GlobeSt.com. "Finding 80 acres of entitled landright across from Downtown is pretty rare."

Kevin Daniels, president of Nitze-Stagen, who was thedevelopment partner with former owner Metropolitan Mortgage &Securities, also thinks it was a great price, but only because heis a creditor of Metropolitan, which is undergoing a bank-orderedliquidation. Daniels tells GlobeSt.com he did not even bother tobid on the property because it was so far overpriced.

"Based on our history with the property, our financial analysisand other research, we didn't think the value met the asking price,it didn't justify what they were asking," says Daniels. "We had anindependent appraisal and (development) analysis done earlier thisyear for our dense urban village plan and the land value came in atabout half (what was paid)."