Friendship Baptist Declines Atlanta's $13.5 Million Proposal

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It seems that these days no one is interested in making a deal with Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. After Morris Brown rejected the city’s bailout offer earlier this month, Friday Friendship Baptist Church declined the Atlanta’s $13.5 million dollar offer to buy their Martin Luther King Jr. and Northside Dr. church. The offer was made in order for the city and the Atlanta Falcons to build a $1 billion retractable-roof stadium that will replace the Georgia Dome.

Friendship sent back a counteroffer of $24.54 million to the city.

“We can’t afford that, so we sent back an offer of 15.5 million,” Mayor Kasim Reed told 11 Alive news.

Fulton County tax records show that Friendship’s property is worth $1.2 million.

Mount Vernon Baptist Church is also included in a separate deal to purchase their location for the stadium. The value of their land is reportedly $1 million.

August 1 is the deadline to reach an agreement between the city and the two churches. If no deal is reached before then, stadium construction will move to Ivan Allen Jr. Blvd. near Northside Dr.

If an agreement is met, Mount Vernon will provide the stadium location and Friendship will be demolished to allow for expansion of Martin Luther King Jr. Drive and a bigger footprint for the stadium.

There has yet to be a public release of the amount proposed to Mount Vernon.

Funding for the new stadium will be largely the responsibility of the Atlanta Falcons, who are projected to pay 80 percent of the cost while $200 million will come from the city’s hotel tax collections.

Friendship Baptist Church is 150 years old. This is the first time an amount for purchasing the locations has been made public.

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