THE Ministry of Education is going after a property owned by the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) in the south-west parish of St Elizabeth and wants to ink a deal before September of this year, an official told the Observer.

The controversial Munro Villas property, a spanking three-acre real estate development comprising land and unfinished buildings at Potsdam across the road from the prestigious Munro College, is on the ministry’s ‘Most Wanted’ list as it prepares to establish a ‘Time Out’ facility to deal with students with disruptive behaviour.

“The Ministry of Education has expressed an interest in the property and they are currently doing their due diligence. That is all I am prepared to say now,” JFF president Captain Horace Burrell told the Observer while hustling to catch an aircraft to Germany where Jamaica play 2010 World Cup hosts South Africa in a hastily-arranged friendly today.

While Burrell remained circumspect, the education ministry’s senior advisor and principal of the Spalding High School in Manchester, Alphonsus Davis, said the project would satisfy the ministry’s objective of finding a suitable place to accommodate and rehabilitate troubled youth.

Davis expects to have the ‘Time Out’ facility up and running by the start of the new school year in September, as long as both parties can agree terms of the sale.

“Yes, that is true, we have an interest in it,” Davis said.

“We had intentions of using another property in St Elizabeth for the ‘Time Out’ facility last year. However, when the Armadale incident occurred, the Ministry of National Security borrowed that facility to house the girls. As a result, we were forced to find another facility,” said Davis, who is in charge of the education ministry’s Safety and Security in Schools programme.

Munro Villas was originally bought by the JFF in 2006 for $22 million, mainly from money donated by the Federation of International Associations of Football (FIFA) from its ‘Gold Project’ fund, designed to help uplift small, less developed nations with their football infrastructure. It was expected to house a football academy.

FIFA president Joseph “Sepp” Blatter initially broke ground in October 2003 for an academy to be housed in Portmore, but a change of administration shortly thereafter saw Burrell being replaced as JFF president and civil servant/businessman Crenston Boxhill leading a fresh executive.

It was later decided by the Boxhill administration to shift the location of the academy from Portmore to St Elizabeth, as the view was that teams training and staying there would, among other things, face fewer distractions.

Burrell returned to the helm in 2007 and his administration decided that the Munro Villas location was unsuitable. The JFF later entered a partnership with the University of the West Indies (UWI) for the academy to be located at its Mona Campus, aided by another US$400,000 grant from FIFA.

The present JFF leadership cited closeness to urban centres and the National Stadium as reasons for the academy’s relocation.

When construction halted on the St Elizabeth property in December 2007, the JFF had spent an estimated $35 million on the first phase of its development — an amount which included the money paid for the land and unfinished buildings.

It has been trying to sell it since as part of an effort to ease a financial crisis, including mounting debt and a dicey cash flow situation that has led to a slashing of its workforce.

It is uncertain how much the property will be sold for, as the parties have not deliberated much on that issue.

“We are in discussion regarding money; we have processes to go through. The commissioner of lands is to do a valuation to determine cost,” said Davis, who led ministry officials on a fact-finding, familiarisation tour of the facility last week Wednesday.

“We will be guided by that and then make an offer to the JFF. We also want to begin early to sensitise the people of the area regarding what we intend to do,” Davis said.

The facility at Potsdam, which at the time of its abandonment was being developed by Lovel Smith Construction of Mandeville, was expected to house an administrative suite, residential blocks, welfare facilities, a gymnasium, health facilities, lecture areas among other areas.

The JFF had also initiated talks with Munro College to enter a long-term lease of its playing fields.

As the situation now stands, there are four two-storey, unfinished buildings on the property, which the JFF bought from a private developer who had started to build villas. Two-and-a-half of those villas were almost completed by the time the JFF made its first deposit of $2.6 million at the start of 2006.

Each building has a water tank to deal with long annual spells of drought in South East St Elizabeth.

One certified quantity surveyor who declined to be identified, said that the JFF would be “lucky” if it got $30 million for the property.

“It is a good piece of real estate and I know it well, but if I were in the ministry’s shoe, I would not offer more than $30 million.

“In today’s tough Jamaica and with real estate not showing the kind of growth that some of us expected, that would be a good price.

“The JFF must also remember its own financial plight and while I am not saying it should give away its assets, it cannot afford to stick out for top dollar, even if the property may be worth it,” the quantity surveyor said.