The city of Mexico has some lines in the water but until the fish is in the boat the city will enter into a forbearance agreement with the owners of the Soft Surroundings’ building.

Soft Surroundings shut down operations this past summer and took several local jobs away in the process. When that happened it put the agreement the city has had in place since 2016 in default. Part of the original deal stipulated that Soft Surroundings employ at least 75 people. City Manager Bruce Slagle told council members at their regular Nov. 13 meeting the agreement will buy the city and the owner of the building time to find a new tenant.

“It will give us another year until October 2024 to hopefully work together to find an additional tenant to back into the building with jobs,” Slagle said. “If we don’t do that, at that point in time we’ll review this again or the agreement will just terminate.”

City Economic Development Director Amy O’Brien told the Ledger that two businesses have recently looked at the building and she’s optimistic something will get done.

Part of the forbearance deal will have the owner of the building, Metromex, make a payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) of $49,168.58 to the city. The owner of the building has an incentive to find a new tenant. If one isn’t in place by this time next year the company will owe $196,674.32 in PILOT payments.

Slagle said when the building was sold in 2020 the bonds on the building went away and the agreement entered into a tax abatement agreement. 

“What we have now is we’re in the tax abatement period. If it goes away, the tax abatement goes away,” Slagle said.