Another Round of Bids for the Florida Avenue Parcels

The Washington Business Journal reports that for a fourth time, Metro is once again looking for new bids to purchase the two parcels at 8th and Florida Avenue, NW, and one parcel at 9th and Florida Avenue, NW.

• 2002: Metro reaches a deal with Howard University to develop the property. The deal fell through in 2003 due to litigation with another bidder.
• 2007: Metro leases the land to Banneker Venture Group, LLC, but withdrew the deal in 2010 after Banneker filed two extensions.  
• 2010: Late in the year, Metro accepts three proposals after two extensions for the parcels.  JBG is published as the highest bidder by $6M higher than the other two bids, one being Howard.  However, the board voted to resubmit the bid since they site that none of the RFPs meet technical needs nor the assessed value of the parcels.
• 2011: Metro resubmits RFP in April

I spoke to Bob Burns back in January who was the contact for the RFP, he said there were three bids that were mixed use development. Later, it was published that JBG offered $11M ($6M more than the other two bids) to purchase the land.  Looking at the tax assessment records, the lots are assessed at roughly $3.5M.

So why did WMATA reject the JBG bid if:
It was higher than the other two (by $6M)
Higher than the assessed land value of $3.5M
What are the technical aspects that caused all the bids to be rejected?  Wouldn't these have been automatically removed before reaching the board for a vote?

Metro is bleeding money and this would have helped tremendously with its finances and helped the community by providing jobs and mixed use development.  Why has there been no community meetings about this, and worse yet, Metro doesn't even work with the community nor its elected officials to keep everyone up to date.

Source: Washington Business Journal