I’m of two minds when it comes to the recent development involving the Ellman Companies and the state trust land.

On the one hand, I hate to see things go south for a company that has already invested so much time and resources into the land but, on the other hand, if Ellman Companies is unable to move forward with development, it’s high time somebody else steps in and gets the ball rolling.

I remember when Ellman Companies first bid on the land back in 2007. I had been in Fountain Hills a couple of years at that point and was only just starting to get a feel for the town.

Being the schools reporter, my primary interest revolved around what the development of the state trust land would mean for Fountain Hills Unified School District and the Fountain Hills Charter School, as well as local daycares, youth programs and the like.

I met Steve Ellman a handful of times back in the early goings, and he seemed genuinely excited for the future development of the land, the homes that would be going up and the families said homes would bring to town.

That excitement was infectious, especially at FHUSD, where sites were seeing an annual dip in enrollment that continues to this day.

The dream scenario was that the development of the state trust land would help curb that decline in student population and, thus, bring more state funding to local schools.

It turned out to be a case of living in the calm before the storm, however, as the housing crash hit shortly after and resulted in the Ellman Companies not being able to move forward with their plans. Ellman was quoted a couple of years ago as saying the company lost more than $1.5 billion worth of real estate in the fallout of the recession, though I’m not sure if that figure includes the $28 million that had been paid toward the purchase of the state trust land and is now lost.

It’s not surprising, then, that Ellman Companies was not able to make a $182 million payment to buy the state-owned land this past March. Also not surprising is the fact that, at this point, the Town was unwilling to allow a five-year extension for payment.

As Mayor Linda Kavanagh stated, Fountain Hills is in need of a population increase, and finding a developer who can move forward with the state trust land project would likely be a big step in that very direction.

Kavanagh and Co. seem confident that the state trust land will resell at auction, and I’m hopeful that whoever picks up the ball this time around is able to make a big play happen.

There’s no point in speculating on a timeframe right now, but hopefully whoever steps in has the resources to move forward quickly and maybe get some homes up and some new families in town.

As far as the state trust land is concerned, the 2008 recession handed out a whole bunch of lemons. All these years later, maybe we can finally make some lemonade.