Arkansas Business this afternoon broke the news that the developers of Residences at Building 5, a condominium project at the old Arkansas Bar Association building in downtown Little Rock, are suing the city for revoking their building permit.

In a statement released late Friday, Brad Canada, the lead manager of Arkansas Riverview Development LLC, which is building the condos, said he was “blindsided” by the city and has no choice but to the file suit in U.S District Court’s Eastern District of Arkansas seeking an injunction and a reinstatement of the permit.

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“We have been working toward a resolution with the city of Little Rock and the Doubletree Hotel over the past few weeks, and we were surprised and disappointed to receive the purported revocation of the building permit for the Residences at Building 5,” Canada said.

The city revoked the building permit for the project in a letter dated July 12. At issue is city-owned land along Garland Street, which runs behind old Arkansas Bar Association building and the DoubleTree Hotel.

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In a letter to CBM Construction, which is building the condos for Canada’s development company, City Director [Manager] Bruce Moore said “there is no document that we can find which authorized CBM to undertake construction on the [city-owned] northern portion, which is the space above Garland Street, on behalf of the City.”

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