Graham’s city council agreed by consensus this week to obtain at least three appraisals and to attach a raft of restrictions to any potential sale of the former Sesquicentennial Park property at the corner of Northwest Court Square.
The council had voted last month to declare the property as surplus and offer it for sale through a public auction. The park was razed during the week following Memorial Day, amid concerns about the sinking foundation.
The council voted 3-2, with Graham mayor Chelsea Dickey and councilman Jim Young opposed, at its July 14 meeting to declare the property surplus and offer it for sale via an electronic public auction. Mayor pro tem Ricky Hall voted with council members Bonnie Whitaker and Bobby Chin to declare the park property as surplus and to advertise a sale through an electronic public auction.
During a brief discussion at the council’s meeting Tuesday night, council members Bobby Chin and Bonnie Whitaker outlined a number of potential restrictions that they want to attach to the deed that would be conveyed as a sale is consummated.
The city’s attorneys, Bob Ward and Bryan Coleman, ultimately agreed to combine all of the proposed deed restrictions, submit them to an appraiser, and report back to the council in September.
Chin said he’d like to have the appraisals before next month’s council meeting.
Ward advised the council Tuesday night to get at least two appraisals to make sure that the city gets the biggest bang for its buck from the sale of the property. He also warned against attaching too many restrictions to the deed, reasoning that the greater the number of restrictions, the lower the appraisals will be. Alamance County tax records list the latest assessed value for the property at $35,588. The council later agreed by consensus to obtain three appraisals.
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Ward outlined four broad categories of restrictions that the council could attach to the deed: conformity to all applicable laws, which would include the city’s development ordinance and current building codes; the property will be sold “as is”; any buyer would be responsible for all remediation, construction, and maintenance and cots; and the council would retain the discretion to reject bids.
Whitaker: Buyer should bear all costs for remediation, construction, and maintenance
Acknowledging that some of her proposed restrictions likely repeated some of those that the attorney had outlined, Whitaker suggested: prohibiting any would-be buyer from transferring “the deal”; requiring the buyer to obtain an approved site plan, including a construction rendering, within one year of purchase; requiring all costs related to remediation of the existing basement, construction of a future building, maintenance of the property to be privately-funded; requiring any park or green space on the property to bear the name “Sesquicentennial Park” or “Main Street Park”; and prohibiting the construction of a parking lot, apartment building, or any structure taller than three stories.
Whitaker also suggested that any future building “must bear a historical resemblance in style and appearance to the building that stood on site for 80 years,” based on a copy of the list of proposed deed restrictions that she provided to the city manager prior to the meeting and read aloud Tuesday night.
Chin: Any future building should resemble what was there prior to 1979
Chin’s list of proposed deed restrictions include such things as requiring: a preapproval letter from a financial lending institution for the cost of construction to be included with the bid in order to “prequalify the purchaser” before the property will be sold; bids to be equal to or greater than the appraised value of the property as a “commercial lot”; any contaminants to be disposed of at an appropriate location; any previous covenants attached to the property to convey with the sale; any future building to “incorporate some design feature, such as the two existing Sesquicentennial Park medallions” into its exterior façade; and requiring the appearance of any future structure to be similar to a building that existed prior to 1979.
The former park property was previously home to the original Graham Soda Shop, which is now located on an opposite corner of Court Square and is owned by former Graham mayor Jennifer Talley and her husband Chuck Talley.
In 1978 the building was in the process of being renovated when load- bearing beam was removed. Overnight, a large gust of wind caused the building to pressurize, and the exterior walls and floors shifted and cracked. The building was deemed beyond repair and was demolished shortly thereafter, according to a script for a Walking Historical Tour that then-assistant city manager Frankie Maness compiled in October 2006.
In addition to the pre-1979 architectural similarity, Chin also proposed that any future building should have three floors above ground and a basement if desired, in addition to conforming to the 2,600-square foot size of the previous building, based on a copy of the list of proposed deed restrictions that Chin provided to the city manager prior to the meeting.
Young: Let HRC handle it
For his part, Young said Tuesday night that he didn’t any restrictions to propose, adding that “a lot of the stuff” could be handled by the city’s Historic Resources Commission (HRC). “HRC and basic real estate [law] would handle everything else,” Young said.
Dickey: Restrict future use to a publicly-accessible park
Dickey offered a single restriction: that it be a publicly-accessible park.
“My thought – and I don’t think it’s going to be very popular with this council – would be that we restrict it to…a park that’s publicly-accessed because I think that is such an asset for downtown,” the mayor said. “It’s such an asset for our downtown businesses; our downtown businesses have expressed the extreme lack of parking so we don’t want to add new infrastructure downtown. My deed restriction would be that they’ve got to keep it a publicly-accessed park, privately-maintained.”
Dickey later pressed Chin about why all of his restrictions assumed that a building would be built on the property. He conceded that a park could be constructed there, as well.
Hall: Require 25 percent of purchase price up front
Mayor pro tem Ricky Hall suggested that the city collect 25 percent of the purchase price up front as earnest money.
“I’m going to make an assumption that this list stands approved as offered by the council members,” Ward said Tuesday night. “We will take this list as presented and get it on to the appraiser and get a time frame at that point.”
Statutory guidelines for disposal of publicly-owned surplus property
State law provides three methods of disposal of surplus property owned by local governments: sealed bids, which requires the property to be advertised for sale via sealed bids for at least 30 days; upset bids, by which the council adopts a resolution to accept an offer but must accept an offer at least 10 percent or higher submitted within 10 days of the advertisement of the original bid, which starts the process over again; and a public auction, either live or electronically, for which a public notice must be advertised at least 30 days in advance. The same state law gives the council discretion to reject all bids.
