Agreement gives art center new home

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

What appeared to be unlikely on Thursday had become reality by Monday as The Van Wert County Foundation worked out an agreement to purchase the former Van Wert Armory building. The site is planned as the future location of Wassenberg Art Center.

With most Van Wert City Council members apparently opposed to extending the Downtown Revitalization District to include the armory — a move that could have prevented developer Jim Brown of Kentucky-based Brown Construction from demolishing the building – it appeared last Thursday that the building site would house a new Family Dollar store instead of Wassenberg.

Instead, the Foundation is purchasing the building from owner Don Lippi, who purchased it in 1998 at public auction. The building would then be renovated as the new home of the art center.

Lippi, who attended Monday evening’s meeting of Council’s Judiciary and Annexation Committee meeting on the Downtown Revitalization District expansion request, said it was Brown who was instrumental in coming to an agreement with the Foundation.

“Mr. Brown did his research on his behalf to make sure his career was not negatively impacted by Family Dollar and he reached a settlement with (the Foundation),” Lippi said, noting that he would be selling the building to the Foundation for the same price he had negotiated with Brown Construction.

Lippi also noted, though, that he feels a discount operation like Family Dollar needs to locate downtown so that people who live in the area have a place nearby where they can purchase food and other items.

Councilman At-Large Jeff Agler was also adamant that he would like to see a Family Dollar locate in Van Wert, while Mayor Don Farmer pledged that city officials would do everything in their power to find another suitable location for a Family Dollar store.

The settlement is a “win-win” for the city, as it provides a way for Wassenberg to grow and expand from an art club into a full-service art center — something Executive Director Hope Wallace said Monday would also be an economic development asset for Van Wert.

Both Wallace and Foundation Executive Secretary Larry Wendel spoke last week on the need to expand the art center, and the problems in trying to do so at the center’s current site at 643 S. Washington St.

Both said expansion of the current center, which is located the former home of Charles and Vera Wassenberg, who donated it to the Foundation in 1954, would be expensive and still not yield any additional space — something that is sorely needed.

Wendel said the armory site not only had the space the art center needed for expansion, but the building, built in 1939, was structurally solid, making it a good choice as Wassenberg’s new home.

No information has been provided at this point on when Lippi and the Foundation would close on the building, nor how long it would take to renovate the building to house the art center.

Also on Monday, City Council’s Finance Committee heard a report from Darlene Myers on the city’s Revolving Loan Fund. The fund has grown from nothing to having a balance of $185,750 as of June 30. That total will decrease substantially, though, as a result of a $125,000 loan to Miller Precision Manufacturing Inc. to purchase the former Teleflex/Kongsberg plant. Myers, who administers the fund, noted that a total of $2.5 million has been loaned out as part of the program, but also said a total of 17 percent of the money has been lost to reinvestment through defaults.

Currently, 36 loans are outstanding, with 34 businesses having loans (two businesses, Universal Lettering and Life Star Rescue have two loans each) at this time.

Myers said companies are allowed to have more than one loan as long as they remain in good standing by making payments on time and creating the jobs required by their Revolving Loan agreement.

The city economic development office staffer also stated that, even though the loan program has lost 17 percent of its loan money to defaults, the program had a 90-percent success ratio — much higher than the norm for such programs.

Following her presentation, Myers requested that Council officially appoint members to the Revolving Loan Fund Committee — something it has not yet done — and that legislation be created and approved making changes in the administration of the fund.

Council later approved a motion to officially appoint Council President Gary Corcoran and Mayor Farmer, both current members of the committee, to those positions. Legislation making administrative changes was put on hold until those changes are finalized.

Also during the City Council meeting, Mayor Farmer announced that private individuals and groups in the community are working to raise funds that would pay the majority of the cost of an aquatics center that would include a swimming pool and other water park equipment.

“There’s a very strong possibility we could have this happen,” the mayor said. “We have nothing to lose; we have everything to gain.”

Currently, a water park design developed a few years ago by the Van Wert County Parks District for a countywide aquatics center is being updated for free by the architectural firm that did the original work, the mayor said.

He noted, though, that the facility would be operated by the city alone.