A hearing took place at the Jackson County Courthouse in the courtroom of the Honorable Richard N. LaFlamme on Monday afternoon with development company J. Jeffers & Co. requesting a block of the sale of the Hayes Hotel to developer Collier Gibson, which was approved by City Council during the February 25 City Council meeting. The City stated, as they have before the hearing, that their purchasing agreement with J. Jeffers had expired on December 31st of last year. The argument from J. Jeffers was that the City had breached the agreement by failing to give the developer a 10-day notice to cure a contract breach before deciding to sell to Collier Gibson. J. Jeffers also alleged that the City did not follow their own ordinances in the process of entering into a purchasing agreement with Collier Gibson.

The City cited emails sent from city officials to J. Jeffers back in December that acknowledged the 31st as the date of the ending of the agreement as evidence that the City had given notice to J. Jeffers, and that the contract had automatically cancelled after that date. Ultimately, Judge LaFlamme was not convinced that the requirement of a 10-day notice applied after J. Jeffers and the City failed to close on a sale prior to December 31, 2024 without an approved extension of the purchasing agreement between the two parties beyond that date, and denied J. Jeffers request to block the sale.