ORANGE BEACH, ALA. — Jeff Hardy waved his arm at a second story row of empty stores as he talked about what he hopes The Wharf becomes.

“This is supposed to be downtown and it needs to be marketed as downtown Orange Beach,” Hardy said afterward. “This is the only downtown Orange Beach has got.

“And it don’t need to look like this,” he said, indicating the row of empty stores.

The financially troubled complex has a prospective buyer interested, Ken Montgomery of Charter Landing, and even a closing date of Jan. 6 on the property has been set.

Concerned retailers, like Hardy who owns Sand Dollar Lifestyles, met with Montgomery Tuesday morning at Guy Harvey’s Island Grille to air concerns.

“The main thing is I would liked to have known a little bit more vision of where we want to be this time next year, a little bit more tenant mix of who he’s going to put in here,” Hardy said. “Just because you give away cheap rent doesn’t mean you get the right people.”

Hardy said Montgomery may offer new tenants leases with prices as low as $10 to $13 a square foot.

“It all hinges around the price they are buying it for,” he said. “They can offer it at a much cheaper rate because they didn’t paying but pennies on the dollar.”

The main thing, Hardy says, is that the complex gets a buyer.

“For this thing to succeed it’s got to sell to somebody,” he said. “The bank is not going to sit here and pay for this from now on or it’s going to go black. It’s going to go dark. And nobody benefits, the city, nobody here benefits if it goes dark.” Some of those attending, heard nothing new from Montgomery, but felt the meeting helped start an understanding between the two groups.

“I feel somewhat better in that this has been the first clear communication to the group,” Jo Hood of H2O said after the meeting. “That’s always a good thing.

“It improved the situation, but I don’t know if it fixed it.”

They main thing, says Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon, is the conversation and exchange between Montgomery and the retailers.

“Very constructive,” Kennon said. “It was good to get everybody in the same room so they could talk face to face. I think they resolved some issues. There’s still some outstanding issues, but again, at least they are talking. Hopefully we can continue to move forward.”

Hardy agrees with Kennon, but hopes the two groups can move forward from a positive meeting more meetings and progress.

“What happens from this point on will be really, really important,” Hardy said. “At least this cleared the air with everybody.

“I don’t know that it solved anything other than we finally got everybody to hearing the same story. We need excitement. We’ve got to put excitement back into the place.”

Montgomery was listed as Secretary/Treasurer on a resume about Charter Landing, and Neena Montgomery as president. The resume listed the company as “100 percent stocked owned by Neena Montgomery.”

Both declined interviews after the meeting saying they would be more willing to talk after the sale of the property closes.