Is it a weed or a dandelion?
How do you get a three-story development out of a one-story building?
After I attended the second of two rushed meetings of the Augusta Land Bank Authority, I began to feel that I had missed something. It nagged at me, so I drove out to the old Week School property.
At the meeting on Friday, the representative of the developer, Denis Blackburne, of WODA Cooper Development, was saying all the right things.
His company was involved in creating the successful Lennox development, and he said the plans that were presented to the Sand Hills Neighborhood Association were met with wild approval. The Sand Hills folks have the reputation of being a tough crowd to sway.
Blackburne briefly showed a postcard-sized mockup of the development from across the table and talked about how the building would house retail space on the ground floor and then either one or two more floors of affordable rent apartments.
Still, something still nagged at me, and when I drove out to the location, it hit me.
The Weed School is a one-story building.
Now, I have heard of parts of historic buildings being “incorporated” into a modern structure, the TEE Center downtown is an example.
However, what the developers of the TEE Center cleverly did was, leave two walls of the old warehouses, the ones facing the streets, as a facade that hid the modern steel building underneath. Also, the old buildings that were “incorporated” into the structure were pre-20th century and contained no modern contaminants such as asbestos.
I have never heard of a developer lopping off the roof of a 100-year-old building and adding two extra stories. Sure enough, Blackburne sent me a mock-up of the proposed new building, and it has absolutely none of the old art deco charm of the original. Because in order to build something cost-effectively and not run into the same problems as the first handful of owners, the old building must come down.
In the end, the people who have been running around blabbering about preserving history and scaring off possible investors will be in for a rude awakening when the last modern nail gets hammered in and the place that was plastered all over “endangered property” lists is a memory.
There is the issue of contamination. According to an environmental study paid for by the city, the buildings that compose the complex are rife with asbestos, lead and a smorgasbord of other contaminants. According to the study:
“The presence of materials potentially containing asbestos and lead, and the observed black mold at the subject property is considered to be an REC,” or a Recognized Environmental Contaminate area.
It is no wonder then, that WODA Cooper did not want to buy the land, but rather lease the land for a building they are paying to construct, which is where the tax credits may come in.
The Weed School has passed from owner to owner, each coming in with bright ideas, until reality set in on how much it would cost to make their dream come true.
Only the last owner walked away with a winning lotto ticket, when the city paid them $1.3 million for land appraised at $300,000.
WODA Cooper has received somewhere in the neighborhood of $800,000 as part of a loan from the Augusta Commission, is applying for tax credits through the Georgia Department of Community Affairs to the tune of $1.2 million and is getting a lease where they pay $10,000 annually for rent, a sum that won’t pay off the city’s investment until long after we are all gone, so it is no wonder that Blackburne was running around like a madman with sweat pouring off his brow to get all the papers signed and notarized before the clock struck five p.m.
I do trust acting City Attorney Jim Plunkett, who stood in at the last meeting for the AGLBA’s attorney, and he has a longstanding reputation in town. He did wrestle some concessions from Blackburne, but an attorney is there to get you the best deal possible, not tell you to your face in an open meeting that you would be an idiot to sign any deal.
Oh, and I loved the way that Land Bank Authority Member Scott Rountree looked over his glasses at me with confidence and assured me while I was asking questions that all of the information will be available soon on the internet. It reminded me of a famous politician who once said, “We have to pass the bill so everyone can see what’s in it.”
Yeah, right.
The bottom line is that this may be the only kind of a deal that the city can realistically expect, and the only alternative may be to let the place remain a falling-down eyesore in the heart of Sand Hills, a place that investors are giving up on as the days go by.
This is what happens when the city is allowed to buy land simply because people are emotionally attached to it, they buy it with no thought given to a return on the investment, monetary, emotional or otherwise.
Mark my words, in a year’s time, when the Weed school is a pile of rubbish, the commissioner’s will cry in unison, “We didn’t know they were gonna do that!”
This deal brokered through the Land Bank may be the boon that the folks in Sand Hills have long waited for. Or in about 20 years, when the income from the tax credits are long gone, it will be a boondoggle with the new building left to rot and the citizens held hostage until more tax credits are bestowed. This is much like what happened just a year or so ago with the historic Bon Air.
Of course, the city will be left holding the bag, after all, they still own the land.
When the cat’s away the mice will play
The only time I have ever felt the need to bring a firearm with me to the river was when we took a walking survey of the Augusta Canal when it was drained in 2008 or so.
I brought my (licensed) gun with me because anytime the canal is drained, the wildlife get disorientated, and no one wants an angry 200-pound beaver charging at them. A shot in the air is enough to scare them away.
So, why would someone bring a gun to a supposed “family-friendly” street party being held at the marina?
Because they can, that is why. And they are never up to any good.
These are the same people that think absolutely nothing about firing a 9mm into a crowd and accidentally killing a little girl and the horse she was petting instead of the gang-banger they were aiming for.
They are the same people who get sent to jail over and over again and either a liberal judge or district attorney declares them for the 10th time reformed. Then they are back out on the streets to do it again, only up the ante this time.
Augusta, of late, has been plagued with unlicensed bars, street vendors and entire festivals that “pop up” like fake Patek Philippe watch dealers on Rodeo Drive.
Whenever someone is actually caught defying the alcohol or license ordinances, they are given a slap on the wrist, i.e. Tiffany’s Eatery on Broad Street. In this instance, even Sheriff Brantley softened his tone when speaking before the commission, knowing they would only take one recommendation: lenient punishment.
In the aftermath of the May 4 shooting near the Boathouse, no one wanted to take responsibility for hosting the unsanctioned festival known as “Stunt Sundays.”
I remember decades ago when a friend of mine wanted to erect an “educational” tepee on the river at the marina. My friend wanted to teach school children about how the Westo Native Americans once lived on the river.
After being presented with enough red tape and paperwork filings to sink a battleship, my friend gave up and erected his tepee on the South Carolina side where he didn’t have to battle with bureaucrats.
It is understandable that people would bristle at having to go through the licensure process to throw a one-day party, but those licenses are necessary. We do not want illegal street vendors selling E. coli burgers, dubious beer tent vendors selling alcohol to minors, and we want to make sure the promoters have the proper security in place to prevent a shootout at the O.K. Corral.
In terms of the May 4 shooting, one man’s name pops up everywhere as being at least one of the people behind the illegal street parties. His business address, which is purportedly leased from the all-but-defunct Port Authority, is listed on the fliers.
Deyon “Tez” Walker admits he has held similar festivals under the same name of Stunt Sundays. The fliers advertised his jet ski rental business, a “cash-App” linked to him was on the fliers and he was on hand, at least for the aftermath of the shooting.
Even with that mountain of evidence, Tez Walker wants us to believe he had nothing to do with the event.
Walker immediately blamed Mayor Garnett Johnson for spreading misinformation about him, to which the mayor politely rolled his eyes.
After my article ran, Walker called me and asked if the article had been published and wanted to know how to find it. I told him the article ran on May 14 and even told him how to Google the article.
He then launched into a tirade about what he presumed my article did not include.
I asked him, “Wait, you just said that you didn’t read the article, right? Did you read it or not?”
“No, I haven’t read it yet.”
“Okay, so you are calling me to complain about an article you never read?”
“Well, uh, yeah.”
Of course, the conversation on the streets then turned to the issue of race, since most of the attendees of the Stunt Sundays are Black.
I’m sorry folks, but the race card these days will get you about as far as a Blockbuster card will get you a movie on Netflix.
Augusta has a Black mayor, a majority Black commission, Black code inspectors and Black police officers. So, no, people are not being singled out for breaking the law because they are Black. They are being singled out because they can’t seem to follow the law.
People are constantly saying Augusta is a majority-minority city. Am I the only one who understands how idiotic that sounds?
Speaking of oxy morons
Is an “arborist that specializes in cutting down healthy trees” an oxymoron or an oxy-moron?
Now that downtown looks like the moonscape and could be mistaken for a sepia-toned photo of 1950s Broad Street only with half of the parking spaces of the 50s, commissioners are revisiting the idea of having an arborist on staff.
Talk about being and hour late and a dollar short.
To be fair, Commissioner Catherine Smith Rice has been advocating for this for years, ever since that oxy-moron, Maurice McDowell, hatched a plan to remove all the trees at the Augusta Common.
In an effort to squelch any conversation about hiring an expert at the May 13 Engineering Committee meeting, Director Hameed Malik, claims they have an arborist “on-call.”
I wouldn’t call Billy-Joe Bob McGillicuttie, who has a license to carry a chainsaw and gets paid by the tree, an arborist nor an expert; but that was apparently enough for the majority of the committee to cut down Rice’s motion as if it were made of, well, wood.
However, as I warned, the Broad Street Boondoggle is already turning into a cash cow for the contractors as commissioners saw the first of what will likely be a flurry of change orders and supplemental funding requests.
A motion was made to “approve supplemental funding to Hussy Gay Bell (HGB) in the amount of $311,674.40 for the Broad Street Improvements Construction Phase Services.”
In other words, Billy-Joe Bob and Hussy Gay Bell want more money to cut down more trees and make the sidewalks look like something out of South Park.
Speaking of the sidewalks, they stopped painting fake bricks on them, now they are just digging up trenches and replacing the concrete with asphalt. Classy, folks, real classy.
Scott Hudson is the Senior Investigative Reporter, Editorial Page Editor and weekly columnist for The Augusta Press. Reach him at scott@theaugustapress.com
