News
Rebuilding Union Street Becoming A Group Effort
By: Steve Robb - Athens Messenger staff reporter
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Owners whose West Union Street buildings were damaged during a November fire in Athens have decided to take a unified approach to rebuilding.
“We decided it would make more sense to have the same architect and hopefully the same contractor,” said Mark Snider, a partner in the company that owns 10 W. Union St. That building housed Uptown Dog T-shirt shop at the time of the fire, but was damaged when another structure collapsed on it.
With the exception of the building that housed The Union Bar & Grill, which is already under repair, the owners of the other buildings will be utilizing RVC Architects of Athens.
Architect John Valentour of RVC gave the Athens Planning Commission an update Thursday on the West Union fire recovery, and talked about the advantages of taking a unified approach.
“It’s going to make it a lot easier in terms of logistics and working on a tight site,” Valentour said.
The rebuild will require access to each other’s property.
“Our fear is that you really don’t want different contractors arguing with each other…,” Snider said Saturday.
Valentour said it’s also hoped that the same state plan examiner will be able to review the plans for all the buildings when state permits are sought.
“So there would be some kind of continuity in the review process,” Valentour said.
Planning Commission member Nancy Bain voiced support for the unified approach. She said having different contractors working on different projects at the same time “would be a nightmare.”
Snider said it’s thought that cooperation on the rebuild will make it move along quicker.
“We are all going to make our own decisions on some things,” Snider said.
The building owners met Friday with RVC. One of the participants was Garry Hunter, trustee for the nonprofit Carrie Larch Trust, which owns the buildings that contained Jack Neal Floral (12 W. Union) and Bobcat Rentals (14 W. Union) prior to the fire.
“The discussions were to identify building issues that could slow down construction, seek to solve these issues in advance and to solve the time problem by agreeing to seek proposals as a unified project with three separate construction agreements with one contractor,” Hunter said in an email to The Messenger.
He said the meeting was productive.
“All parties work well together,” Hunter said.
According to Hunter, a timetable was agreed upon that calls for work to be completed by next May, or the summer of 2016 at the latest.
Guy Philips, who was at Friday’s meeting on behalf of 14 1/2 W. Union and 16 W. Union, could not be reached for comment by The Messenger on Saturday. Those buildings housed Kismet and The Smoke Zone prior to the fire.
During a recent meeting of the Athens Board of Zoning Appeals, Philips praised the cooperation that has been taking place between the property owners.
The buildings that housed The Smoke Zone and Bobcat Rental share the same facade, even though they have different owners. They will continue to have a shared facade after the rebuild, but it was explained at the zoning board meeting that, behind the facade, 14 1/2 and 16 W. Union will be one building, and 14 W. Union and 12 W. Union will be another building.
The facades of 14 1/2, 14 and 16 W. Union will be saved, the facade of 12 cannot be saved, according to information presented at the zoning board meeting. The building at 10 W. Union St. will be demolished and a new structure built.
The Messenger previously reported that the zoning board, by a 3-2 vote, granted parking variances so all the these properties can have apartments on the upper floors.