News
Some residents raise concerns about the renovation of a historic uptown Athens building
By: David Forster
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB) — At a recent town hall meeting in Athens, several residents voiced frustrations with the redevelopment of a historic building in the city’s uptown district.
One of the most outspoken critics owns a store adjacent to the building and says the disruption caused by the construction work has been devastating for her business.
Others raised concerns about the impact the new business will have on parking and what some believe to be special financial incentives given to an out-of-town developer to make the project happen.
The building, located at the intersection of South Court and West Union, directly across from the main entrance to Ohio University, has been vacant for years.
The three-story brick structure was a car dealership when it opened in the early 1900s. It later went through a succession of owners and uses, including a college bookstore, which was the last business to occupy the building.
Two large banners recently hung outside the building now advertise the upper floors as “hotel-style” residences that will be available starting this fall.
Whether the rooms become a hotel or longer-term residences, or some combination of the two, matters when it comes to parking.
Four years ago, another developer that was interested in renovating the building into student rentals was granted a variance from the city’s parking requirements.
Like most buildings on Court Street, The Lostro is located right up against the sidewalk. The only parking is metered spaces on the street.
The city code required 40 designated parking spaces for what the previous developer was proposing, which could be located somewhere else. A variance was granted reducing the parking requirement to 20 spaces.
That developer abandoned the project. The parking variance expired because it was never used, according to a local attorney who spoke at the town hall meeting last month.
Athens city code does say a variance that is not used expires after a year. While there are some questions about what exactly constitutes “use” for purposes of a variance, in this case it doesn’t really matter, said Andy Stone, the city’s service-safety director.
Stone said as far as the city is concerned, Indus is planning to use The Lostro as a hotel and the city code does not require designated parking for hotels, just as it does not for other uptown businesses.
“We are basing this interpretation on the fact that the developer has applied to the state Department of Commerce for an extended stay hotel license, which we expect to be granted upon completion of construction,” Stone said.
Stone acknowledged the banners hanging outside the building use the term residences. “We will monitor their hotel license with the state,” he said, “and if it isn’t annually renewed and/or isn’t operated as a hotel, extended stay or otherwise, and transitions to residential, we’ll take action to enforce city zoning regulations.”
A spokesperson for Indus said the company will soon be releasing more details about The Lostro.
Sidewalk fencing blocked foot traffic on Union Street in Athens
When renovations began on The Lostro last summer, the contractor fenced off the sidewalk adjacent to the building on West Union.
Saraquoia Bryant said this significantly reduced the foot traffic passing by her store, Cool Digs Crystal Gallery, which is in the building next to The Lostro. She said her sales plummeted.
Stone said the sidewalk closure was necessary so the contractor could access utility lines buried underneath. This was supposed to last only a month, but the contractor requested an extension so it could seal off an underground vault that extended from the basement under West Union.
When the contractor requested a third extension months later, Stone said the city granted this on the condition a pedestrian walkway be created adjacent to the fenced off section of sidewalk. The walkway was added the first week of January.
Bryant said she had been pleading with the city since the fence first went up to add a walkway like this.
“It took me months to get a little walkway that should have been there on day one,” Bryant said. “That’s the kind of accountability that we as a community need to expect.”
Stone said the city considered requiring a walkway when the sidewalk was first closed. But the area originally fenced off included not just the sidewalk but the adjacent street parking. This was necessary to do the work that needed to be done, he said. The contractor was also using the fenced-off area to store materials and equipment.
Adding a pedestrian walkway would have meant shutting down the lane for through traffic on West Union, leaving only the turn lane onto Court Street. Stone said the decision was made this would cause even more disruption.
“There’s businesses in the rest of the central business district as well,” he said. “And if people say I’m not going uptown because I got to sit and wait for a light to change multiple times before I get through it, because we funnel all the traffic over into one lane, then I get that complaint as well.
“So we looked at it and we looked at the closure that was necessary in order to do the work, and we said it’s probably better for at least a period of time to just shut it off for pedestrians and have them walk around. But as the request for closure got longer and longer, we said, ‘OK, this needs to stop and you need to provide an alternative.’”
Bryant said the city should be doing a better job anticipating disruptions like this and planning for it. She referenced the infrastructure work that shut down portions of West Union for months last year and the impact that had on businesses.
The city, she said, should “come up with a real plan that has less community impact. Because this ignoring of all these businesses being closed by construction is really appalling to most of our community.”
The developer received government assistance
Concerns also have been raised about financial or other incentives Indus has received to renovate The Lostro.
Indus has been approved for federal tax credits that promote the restoration of historic buildings. The state awarded a $431,920 brownfield remediation grant to help with the asbestos removal.
The developer received a tax incentive from the Athens County commissioners. This freezes property taxes at the current, pre-renovation rate for 10 years. After that, the tax will be reassessed based on the building’s market value at that time.
This tax abatement comes with some conditions. Within 24 months after the project is completed, The Lostro must create five full-time jobs paying an average of $24 per hour and 50 part-time jobs paying an average of $15 per hour. The minimum annual payroll must be $999,000.
If the company fails to meet these requirements, the county can modify or terminate the agreement and require the payment of the additional property taxes it otherwise would have had to pay had it not received an abatement.
Stone said the city itself offered no special incentives for the project, financial or otherwise.
He said the city did create a special district around The Lostro so the developer can take advantage of a government program that provides lower-cost financing for energy efficiency upgrades. This district can be expanded if other uptown building owners want to take advantage of the program, Stone said.
Stone said people may be under the impression the developer got a break on the cost of using the city’s water and sewer system.
The city charges a capacity fee for projects that add demand to these utilities. A brand new development has to pay the full fee because it’s adding new demand to the systems. But for an existing house or building that’s already connected to these systems, the fee depends on whether any change in use adds to demand.
So if an existing home is sold as a home, or an existing restaurant is sold and will continue to be a restaurant, no fee would be charged because this is not expected to create more demand on the system.
In other words, the new owners get a credit for the previous use.
But if the use is changing significantly in a way that would increase demand on the water and sewer systems, a capacity fee would be assessed.
Stone said that for The Lostro building, “There were apartments there for years. There was a car dealership there in the basement for years. I think there have been a couple different food service operations. … If you look back through the history of Athens, so when we went back and did the math on it, we said that the credits basically are equivalent to what you’re proposing and they got a zero capacity fee.”
Much of the government support Indus is receiving to help with the renovation of The Lostro are things local developers could try to take advantage of as well, Stone said.
“I would love to have other owners uptown come to me with plans for renovating vacant buildings — and we have a couple other vacant buildings in the uptown area that are local owners — and we will help them through this process because it’s so important that those storefronts stay vibrant,” he said.
Stone said renovating buildings in the uptown area is often challenging and costly because the buildings are so old and often have problems, some that don’t even materialize until the work begins.
And because the buildings are packed so tightly together and right up against the sidewalk, he acknowledged that work done on a building can be disruptive to surrounding buildings and businesses as well as to the flow of people and traffic.
But he argued that filling empty storefronts should be a priority.
“I believe that a central business district with a bunch of vacant storefronts is more damaging to the remaining businesses in the central business district than not having a bunch of vacant storefronts,” he said.
“If you look at lots of small communities in the country whose downtowns are dying because people don’t want to go to places where they got to park and walk a little ways to get there,” he said, “or they want to go to Walmart and buy things for cheap prices and they don’t want to go to a central business district, the things that make them even more so not want to go to that central business district is when half the storefronts are empty.”