Akyumen CEO Aasim Saied, left, and Mayor Jerome Prince

Gary sues Akyumen to take back Genesis Center, Ivanhoe property

Contributed By:The 411 News

Mayor Jerome A. Prince today said the City of Gary Redevelopment Commission moved to take back the Genesis Center and the former Ivanhoe property. The RDC filed a lawsuit against Akyumen Technologies, charging the company with breaching two contracts.

The Genesis Center and the Ivanhoe property – site of the demolished Ivanhoe Gardens Housing Development – were the cornerstones of a partnership between the Prince Administration and Akyumen Industries, a mobile device maker.

When the partnership was announced in October 2020, Mayor Prince called it “an opportunity to reconfigure not only this Genesis Center but to reuse land that has long been abandoned and unproductive. And it will bring 2,000 jobs.”

For Akyumen, it was the opportunity to build their technology business to become the first mobile device seller manufacturing its products in the U.S. The Genesis Center would become Akyumen’s headquarters. The company said it would build a manufacturing facility on the Ivanhoe property.

For both parties, it was a chance for growth. Mayor Prince said the two properties wouldn’t be transferred as a cash purchase "This is a deal in progress and we will sit down to work out the specific details with Akyumen, ultimately ending with a purchase or a lease purchase."

According to the complaint filed in Lake Superior Court, Akyumen Technologies defaulted on its contract with the RDC, failing to pay the contractual $2.5 million for the Genesis Center property by July 27. That failure nullified the contract, according to the RDC, and it opened the company up to a $100,000 fee known legally as “liquidated damages.”

The RDC also claims the company defaulted on its promise to provide the RDC with a development agreement for the former Ivanhoe property, essentially nullifying that purchase, too. The company’s failure to live up to the agreement should cost the company $27,500 in fees, as described in the complaint.

Mayor Prince said Akyumen Technologies made many attractive promises, but they delivered on none of them. The two properties in question have already drawn the interest of other developers with exceptional ideas, all of which the RDC will examine closely, Mayor Prince said.

“My team and I will continue to look for ways we can make the most of vacant or underutilized properties and put them on our tax rolls, and these two properties will be ideal for the right developers,” Mayor Prince said. “We can never move our City forward until we’re willing to try new approaches to development.”

Story Posted:07/28/2021