Council balks at interfering in deal

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

Van Wert City Council was presented with a difficult — and unwanted — quandary: save a historic city building or bring a new business into the city. Added to the mix is the fact that Council has only days to make a decision.

With a contract already in place for the purchase of the former Van Wert Armory building as a site for a new Family Dollar discount store and a final closing on the deal eminent, representatives of The Van Wert County Foundation (VWCF) and Wassenberg Art Center, as well as a large group of community leaders, artists and business people, sought to block the sale so the building could be used as a new site for the art center.

The request was more roundabout than that, though, with the group merely asking City Council to approve inclusion of the armory building in the Downtown Revitalization District, the boundary of which currently stops at Central Avenue.

Doing so, however, would bring the building under the control of the Downtown Design Review Board, which could prevent demolition of the armory under Revitalization District guidelines. Developer Jim Brown of Kentucky-based Brown Contracting LLC admitted that, if that happened, it would essentially kill the deal he has with building owner Don Lippi, since Family Dollar only constructs new buildings for its stores.

Both the Wassenberg and Family Dollar options would be positives for the community. A larger home for the art center would allow it to expand from its current “club” status to a full-fledged art center, according to Wassenberg Executive Director Hope Wallace, while building a new Family Dollar store would provide approximately nine new jobs to a community hard-hit by the 2008 recession, as well as a downtown discount store.

To add to the complexity of the situation, City Council has already approved a tax abatement request related to the Family Dollar project, while Brown says any delays to his tight construction schedule could also result in Family Dollar pulling out of the deal.

Local attorney Chuck Koch, who is also a County Foundation board member, laid out that entity’s request, citing the positives for the community that would arise from saving the existing building and turning it into an art center. Wallace also provided information to those attending the meeting on what the armory could look like as an art center and the benefits the expansion would have on local culture and future economic development.

The apparent problem, in most City Council members’ minds at least, is the timing. Several Council members said they felt blindsided by the “11th hour” Foundation/Wassenberg request; and, while the idea of saving a historic building and expanding the art center were positives in their mind, the existence of a legal contract between Lippi and Brown was a definite negative to expanding the revitalization district to include the armory.

That was especially true when Law Director John Hatcher said it was possible that doing something that would kill the Family Dollar deal could result in lawsuits against Council members. Mayor Don Farmer earlier said his administration was staying neutral in the dispute.

First Ward Councilman John Marshall, a longtime Army reservist who trained in the armory said that, while he had fond memories of being in the armory, he wasn’t in favor of doing something that would, in essence, terminate the legal business deal nearly concluded between Lippi and Brown.

Councilman At-Large Jeff Agler went further, accusing the foundation of quashing economic development the city desperately needs. Koch and local attorney C. Allan Runser, another VWCF board member, denied that was the Foundation’s intent, with Runser saying the request was aimed at saving the historic armory building, built in 1939, just prior to World War II, not to keep Family Dollar out of the city.

Lippi, who purchased the building at public auction in 1998, also attended the meeting and noted that, while he would have been happy to sell the building to the Foundation for a new art center, he felt he needed to honor the commitment he made to Mark Brown of Brown Contracting, who died of cancer while the deal was pending. Jim Brown noted his deceased brother’s love of the Van Wert area and his own plans to move forward with the Family Dollar project, while Lippi talked about the American ideal of freedom of choice and how he had already made his choice to sell the building to Family Dollar — something he asked Council to respect.

Foundation officials said they had hoped that Lippi would consider an offer they made to buy the building after the Browns’ purchase option expired, but Lippi said he felt he still had a commitment to give the developers a chance to say whether they were still interested in the building, which led to the current deal.

While most Council members remained reluctant to interfere with the sale of the building, a Judiciary and Annexation Committee meeting was scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday, August 13, to further discuss the Foundation/Wassenberg request.