Augusta’s Historic Preservation Commission flexed its muscles Thursday, citing a property owner for the first time for failing to “provide adequate maintenance and repair” to a downtown building.
The owner is Joe Edge, whose SH Investment Group since 2020 has owned the historic former First Baptist Church, considered the birthplace on Greene Street of the Southern Baptist Convention.
Edge, who also owns The Augusta Press, contends he is being singled out for refusing overtures made by Historic Augusta to get him to sell or donate the church and will fight the ruling.
Conducting the Thursday hearing, attorney Evita Paschall called witnesses for over 80 minutes Thursday to testify about the building’s conditions. They included overgrown vegetation, broken glass, rotten floors and occasional break-ins.
MORE: Update: First Baptist Church downtown Augusta
Architect Rob Mauldin, whose office is near the church, said he’s watched the building’s gradual decline since at least 2016. Of note was damage to the building’s unique dome, through which light shone into the sanctuary, he said.
At a minimum the building needs to be appropriately “mothballed,” with all openings sealed and made watertight, to prevent further damage until it can be restored, Mauldin said.
“The goal is to not lose the resource, to stabilize the building as it is and maintain and better that envelope to the point where the historic building is not deteriorating further,” he said.
MORE: FreshTake Grocery to open Monday
Given a chance to speak, Edge asked the commission why it is pursuing him in court rather than trying to help him save the building.
Edge said he’s spent several hundred thousand dollars on the property with the intent of saving it.
“A lot has changed” since he bought the church in 2020, including expectations about converting the rear portion into office space, he said.
“It’s in a better condition now than it was four years ago,” Edge said. “I really, really want to drive home the point that those dollars have saved this building.”
The commission voted 8-0 with one abstention that Edge had “failed to provide ordinary maintenance and repairs” to the building.
The vote gives an owner 10 days to apply for a certificate of appropriateness to make the needed changes, attorney Sam Meller said.
George Bush of Historic Augusta said the group had identified a fabricator to recreate the dome and had architectural drones fly overhead to survey the site. Historic Augusta routinely works with property owners to identify historic tax credits and other ways to finance costly renovation projects, he said.
MORE: Augusta Canal executive director dies suddenly
Historic Augusta reached out to the Historic Preservation Commission about using its authority on the building to try to save it, he said.
The church is “a national asset” and “we are just trying to save it,” Bush said.
“I’m just hopeful that this is going to have a good outcome – that Mr. Edge either donates the building to someone with the resources to take care of it or the HPC continues forward in its prosecution of this owner or owners,” he said.
Bush said he hopes the commission’s vote is the first of many.
“The HPC has designated this as their first target and I’m hopeful that they are successful and that they will continue to pursue other owners of property that are located in the downtown historic district that are not making ordinary repairs to their structures,” he said.
