The Port of South Louisiana looks to pay almost a half billion dollars for the Avondale Global Gateway, the former Avondale Shipyard.
How the Port arrived at that price has been a mystery of late with the PSL officials choosing to not release the appraisal they performed which lead to the sky-high offer.
Now the Port of South Louisiana is reversing course, and releasing the appraisal.
PSL commissioned Baton Rouge real estate firm Cook Moore Davenport and Associates to prepare the appraisal.
The appraisal needed to be released if the state Bond Commission was going to move on financing the deal.
Now PSL has released a redacted version of the appraisal.
"After careful consideration and discussion and recognizing the tremendous impact this transaction has on various governmental interests, the region and the state, the port finds it important to release this redacted appraisal and welcomes the opportunity to discuss this document," wrote Port Lawyer Peter J. Butler Jr. in a letter with the appraisal.
According to experts with the Times-Picayune/New Orleans Advocate who poured over the appraisal, the paperwork relies on optimistic assumptions about the performance of the property as a reason for the astronomically high price PSL has offered to pay.
The enormous figure, hundreds of millions of dollars more than T. Parker Host paid for Avondale Shipyard and the $100-million it poured into remaking the complex, prompted Governor John Bel Edwards to withhold support of issuing bonds for PSL until further review of an appraisal was made.
The high purchase price is a based on appraiser Wes Moore, who predicts the Avondale Global Gateway to more than double its revenue projection from $21-million this year to around $51-million in 2030. Weighing an investment by PSL of an additional $21-million to bring two docks into use the projection for net-operating income nearly tripled. So the buying price had to reflect this.
Port Executive Director Paul Matthews summed up the performance they are expecting from the Avondale purchase in football terms to the paper: "Avondale is like Andy Dalton right now, a perfectly serviceable quarterback," Asher said. "But you don't want to be paying a Patrick Mahomes price until you see how it performs, until he gets you to the Super Bowl."
