Sources inside City Hall and in the brokerage community agree each of the three development groups plans a mixed-use venture that would include an undetermined amount of office, retail, residential and public parks.

Although the price of the property remains a secret for another four months, Downtown industrial brokers and area construction industry estimators who have participated in comparable projects over the years, tell GlobeSt.com the estimated contract number will be $6 million or lower. They base their prediction on an estimated selling price of $3 per sf. That price is double what the city paid Sears Roebuck Co. for the former warehouse-distribution center property in 1991.

Sources in the construction and brokerage communities tell GlobeSt.com the estimated redevelopment cost of City Hall East will be at least $250 million. They base that projection on an estimated average hard construction cost of $125 per sf, assuming the redeveloped project will have at least two million sf total.

"This is not going to be a fast-track 12-month or 18-month turnkey operation," an area construction industry source whose company is developing commercial projections nationwide, tells GlobeSt.com. "This will probably turn out to be at least a 10-year buildout" assignment.

Two national developers previously mentioned as possible bidders are out of the running for the redevelopment project since they did not submit bids. They are Sam Himmelrich of Baltimore, MD and Simeon Bruner, a principal in the Cambridge, MA-based Bruner/Cott firm.