Lawsuit involves Bass Pro Shops location in Virginia
On Jan. 8, a company named Thomlynn LLC, filed a lawsuit against Holladay Property Services Midwest Inc., at the Circuit Court of Hanover County for $5.9 million in damages.
Holladay and its entire board are being named in the suit – including Austin Haynes, a Republican primary candidate for Clerk of the Court in Prince William who was employed as their senior vice president at the time of the stated complaint.
The preliminary hearing for the case will be at the Circuit Court in Hanover on April 21, according to Circuit Court documents.
This comes just four days before the Republican firehouse primary, where Haynes will face off against Michele McQuigg, the incumbent and his opponent in the primaries.
According to Circuit Court documents, Holladay was involved in developing the Winding Brook commercial site in Hanover, and that they built a Bass Pro Shop “outlet” in 2008.
In order to develop Winding Brook, the Lewiston Center Community Development Authority was formed, and it issued bonds – a standard practice – to fund development on the site, according to court documents.
Court documents state that these bond values were secured based on tax assessments of the Winding Brook properties. Taxes on the properties plus a special assessment tax rate of 10 cents per $100 in property value from the owners would go toward paying the bonds. Additionally, if this wasn’t enough to cover debt service of bonds, the Authority could authorize another assessment to add to the amount a landowner pays on their property.
The CEO of Holladay, John Phair, sits on board of the Authority that authorizes assessments, a Circuit Court document states.
“By reason of his position and access to information relating to the tax funding of the bonds… [Phair] knew about actual and/or expected debt service shortfalls under the bonds and the complex means and methods for calculating special assessments,” court documents state.
After construction of the Bass Pro shop was complete, Holladay wanted to sell the property and the 5-acre parking lot, and began negotiations of the sale with Thomlyn in 2012, court documents state.
In 2013, Thomlyn purchased the Bass Pro outlet for $9.1 million, according to court documents.
According to claims made in the lawsuit, Thomlyn stated that in 2014, a special additional assessment was made on the property by the Authority and it stated that it would now cost them $500,509 in taxes per acre of land assessed, according to court documents.
Thomlyn has claimed in court documents that Holladay was intentionally misleading about the amount the company would need to pay in taxes toward the debt service of the bonds for the Winding Brook site.
As stated in court documents, Thomlyn is seeking $350,000 in compensatory damages per defendant, which will total $5.9 million.
Haynes is one of multiple defendants named in this lawsuit.
“I don’t think I can talk about it because it’s in litigation… the hearing on the 21st is a motion to dismiss. As far as I know, it’s frivolous and that there was no real basis for it,” Haynes said.
Haynes also stated a dismissal would be based on his lack of involvement in the case.
Haynes requested the hearing date be moved to this month, instead of the original hearing date in June.
