In our story today, we recounted the recollections that Nancy Graham offered about the 2002 meeting when her development deal was consummated with The Related Group and Lennar Corp. That deal paid Graham a continuing profit through 2007, court records show, giving her income from two developers with projects downtown — at the same time she negotiated with them as the Centre City Development Corp.’s president. She went on at length about the meeting, offering an interesting window into the deal’s final stage.
You walked in. Jorge said: This is the deal. This is it. A third is ridiculous. We’re not going to do this. This is it. Twenty percent.
She recalled getting their investor on the phone to share what was happening. They delivered an ultimatum:
Are you ready to write the check to close on this deal to buy the property, because if so, we’re going to tell [Perez] to, excuse my language, fuck off and walk out of this room.
Her husband, though, offered much less detail. Here’s all he had to say about that same meeting when he was deposed last summer:
They made an offer and we went out of the room. We sat and debated. I went back in the room and made a counter, and it was accepted.”