By Doug Livingston
Beacon Journal staff writer
Private developers and city officials are envisioning a downtown where restaurants and retailers give purpose to empty and historic buildings now languishing at the epicenter of public investment.
With an influx of urban eateries, shopping and entertainment, empty nesters and young professionals would move downtown, perhaps taking up residence in trendy loft apartments with front windows that overlook the renovated Main Street, Lock 3, Lock 4 or Cascade Plaza.
In turn, businesses would flock to the city’s core, chasing talented workers and consumers.
That’s the idea behind a proposed $33 million redevelopment of six city-owned buildings on Main Street. And if the plan sounds familiar, it’s because another developer proposed it eight years ago but failed.
Bowery Development Group LLC unveiled a new vision for Main Street on Monday at an Akron City Council meeting. The plan, which the city says has the financial support lacking in a previous attempt at redevelopment, requires quick action by council to meet tight timetables for tax credit applications and construction deadlines.
Councilman Jeff Fusco, president of the planning committee, asked colleagues to take a week to scrutinize the plan then come back ready to vote on it.
The deal would shift ownership of six city-owned buildings to Bowery Development Group LLC, which includes Canton-based DeHoff Development Co. and Geis Cos. of Streetsboro.
Purchased by the city for $3.55 million in the late 1990s, the row of properties stretches from the Whitelaw building, built in 1895 beside what is now the Akron Civic Theatre, and the Landmark Building at the corner of Bowery and Main streets. Each of the buildings have been empty for the better part of the past decade, or longer.
City administrators hope the deal will salvage the landmarks and provide 120 apartments, 120 permanent service industry jobs, 300 temporary construction jobs and at least 50 percent occupancy for street-level retail shops where boarded windows exist today.
The plan was announced two weeks after the mayor released the Downtown Vision and Redevelopment Plan.
“If we didn’t do something with them, we run the risk of losing them,” said Jeff Hardy, Mayor Dan Horrigan’s chief of staff.
$2 buildings
The Bowery project would cost $33 million, including a minimum of $20 million in private investment and the rest from state or federal tax credits the developers hope to get by promising to preserve history while creating new economic opportunities.
In all, there are six buildings in the plan.
Akron would sell all but the Landmark for a total of $10. The combined 67,025 square feet in those five smaller buildings would be used mostly for retail shops, restaurants, bars and entertainment space. Thirty residential lofts would be available above the businesses along with premium boutique office space.
Each building could house multiple businesses, developers said. A clothing shop accessed from Main Street, for example, could open up into a restaurant that winds downstairs and pours out back onto a patio overlooking the canal and concrete steps of Lock 4.
The last and largest structure in the row — the Landmark Building at 155 S. Main Street — would be sold for $1.3 million through a complicated program called tax increment financing.
Here’s how it works.
The developer would make substantial improvements to the old Akron Savings & Loan building, installing restaurants and retail space on the main floor and balcony mezzanine, plus 86 one- to two-bedroom lofts in the rest of the 12-story building.
The improvements would increases the property value. But the increased value would not be taxed for 30 years. This encourages the private companies and their investors to take a chance, creating businesses that generate tax revenue.
At the end of the 30 years, the city is guaranteed $1.3 million, or what the property was worth in 2008. The Landmark Building, virtually empty since 2009, is likely worth less now.
Second time
In 2008, the city agreed to sell each of the five buildings for $1 a piece and the Landmark Building for $1.3 million to Main Street Partners LLC.
Then the financial crisis hit. The company began missing project deadlines, including the $1.3 million payment for the Landmark, Hardy said.
The city since has repossessed four of the six properties. Horrigan’s team expects a favorable ruling on the last two after filing a motion in Summit County Common Pleas Court in late September.
As Horrigan cleans up fallout from the last deal, the timely Bowery project actually follows years of planning that began under Mayor Don Plusquellic.
In 2014, after a brief stint with University Park Alliance, former Deputy Mayor Dave Lieberth received a call from the DeHoff Co., which wished to tour city sites prime for development. A year before effectively scrapping the 2008 deal with Main Street Partners, Lieberth showed off the Main Street buildings.
Dan DeHoff, president of DeHoff Development Co., said the group plans to close on financing by August 2017 and break ground immediately with a completion date a little more than a year later in September 2018.
Doug Livingston can be reached at 330-996-3792 or dlivingston@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow on Twitter: @ABJDoug .