Council members are trying to huddle with Legaspi Co. in early April. Council Chairman Jesse Garcia said the council needs the meeting to make sense of the mixed messages it has received about the proposed market from the company and city administrators.

"The concept is a good one and would fit quite well there," Garcia said Thursday. "It is not only for the Latino population. It is a market where everyone could go." Legaspi President José de Jesus Legaspi welcomes a meeting and hopes to put the project back on the table. "We would love to sit down with all the stakeholders."

Legaspi's Ogden project is similar to one he is pitching in Salt Lake City, where Mayor Rocky Anderson's office is proposing a $3.6 million incentive package to make it happen. The Salt Lake City Council has not yet voted on the proposal.

In Ogden, however, the market proposal has not advanced that far. Community Development Director Dave Harmer said members of Mayor Matthew Godfrey's administration have worked under the assumption that the firm has dropped the project.

On March 6, Legaspi's Salt Lake City consultant, David Spatafore, e-mailed the city and said the developer was looking to sell its Ogden properties.

He also canceled a meeting with city officials that was scheduled for that week.

"The belief is that with Ogden's limited resources, negotiating a development agreement for this approximate $25 million project is probably not going to happen, even though this project would generate more than $50 million in sales," Spatafore told Ogden Chief Administrative Officer John Patterson in the e-mail.

Spatafore said this week that he told Patterson the deal was off because city administrators - other than Patterson - were not supportive. Ogden has its resources tied up redeveloping downtown, he added, but city administrators lacked the will to find other sources to help make Legaspi's project work.

Harmer said it's true the city is constrained.

"We didn't have any qualms about the project," he said. "But . . . we're strapped out with all the existing commitments we have under way. We have pretty much put all our available resources on trying to turn around the downtown."

In fact, nearly $400,000 in property tax increment - money yet to flow from a redevelopment project area that includes Legaspi's block - is now pledged as collateral for debt the city took on in December to build a high-adventure recreation center in a planned downtown mall.

Legaspi's block - bordered by 24th and 25th streets, Monroe Boulevard and Quincy Avenue - is about a half mile east of the downtown. It's part of the five-block Lester Park Redevelopment Project, which was created in 1986 and expires in 2011.

Harmer said new legislation may allow the city to split sales-tax revenue with the developer over time, but Legaspi wanted the money upfront.

"We don't have any tools to do much for them," he said.

The Legaspi group, Harmer added, wanted the city to bridge a $3 million gap between its development costs and a revenue stream that would make the project viable. He said the most the city could come up with is $500,000 to $1 million in incentives.

Legaspi said the size of the "gap" his company wanted the city to bridge ranged from $500,000 to $3 million, depending on the development choices.

"What they can do for us has not been clear to us," Legaspi said.

Harmer and Patterson said the Legaspi group never has provided the city with financial information about the company, cost estimates and other details that would make city administrators comfortable about providing financial incentives.

"They have provided us a lot of general information, but they've never sat down with us to go through the details," Harmer said.

Legaspi disputes that. He insists the company has provided site plans and a process for how the city could best work with his firm.

"We've done what we needed to do," he said. "If it doesn't show enough for us to pay a ton of money for the property, I don't know what does."

Legaspi said his company has spent about $3 million to acquire the properties, including the IGA building at the corner of 24th Street and Monroe Boulevard and the Wheelwright Lumber buildings on Quincy Avenue. Associated Food Stores Inc., a Salt Lake City-based grocery cooperative, has been negotiating to buy the IGA property from Legaspi, but no agreement has been made to sell any of the Ogden properties, Legaspi said.

"Our effort is really to create a win-win-win for the community, the city and us," Legaspi said.

kmoulton@sltrib.com

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Tribune reporter Heather May contributed to this story.