Mayor, Old Y owners going after same grant
By Kayleigh Zyskowski / State Journal
(http://state-journal.com/news/article/5177035)
The Old Y may see its second life as a boutique hotel after city commissioners agreed to support the owners in an application for a blight removal project grant.
John and Martha Gray bought the 100-year-old building in December 2007 for $1 and have since attempted to transform it into a hotel and restaurant on Bridge Street.
“What we should be trying to do as a community is grow the economic pie, and this – the (Old) Y – it grows the economic pie,” Martha Gray said.
However, extensive damages from flooding and age have made the building a blighted property that has been condemned for several months.
During Monday’s work session, the Grays asked the commissioners to pass a resolution in support of their grant application process, which would not include any monetary promises but only Mayor Gippy Graham’s signature.
“We don’t want any help from city departments; we don’t need any help,” John Gray said during the meeting.
The grant would provide the Grays with funding to bring the structure out of the current blighted state and allow rehabilitation to begin, Martha Gray explained.
The city wouldn’t have a monetary obligation, but the grant would be filed under the city’s name – freezing any opportunity for the city to apply for another Community Development Block Grant within the life of the Old Y grant.
However, Graham has a separate CDBG project in mind for Bellepoint.
Kriss Lowry, of Lowry & Associates who helped the city with a previous Holmes Street grant, attended Monday’s meeting to discuss how the Bellepoint project might work. She explained the planning process the city needs to finish before an application can be prepared before the Sept. 4 deadline.
The grants can fund up to $1 million, Lowry said, and the city would be expected to contribute a “meaningful” sum, but certainly not match the grant.
The amount of each grant is determined using a formula once the application is received, according the Department of Housing and Urban Development website.
“This is something I would strongly love to do,” Graham said. “I’ve had this in the back of my mind for a long time.”
However, John Gray called Graham’s plan a “typical city ambush,” saying he has been given “reason after reason” why the city will not support the project at the Old Y.
Martha Gray said the application would be submitted after several suggestions from the Department for Local Government are addressed at the couple’s expense. If the funding is secured, the couple plans to take out a loan from the bank against the coming grant money to start the project as soon as possible.
The contractor said the blight removal could be complete in less than four months making the building fit for renovations, Martha Gray said.
Commissioner Michael Turner said he supported the Old Y project for the current application deadline, and Commissioners Sellus Wilder and Katie Hedden agreed. They said the Bellepoint application could be completed for the next cycle.
“Time is of the essence,” Martha Gray said, adding that if the city waits for the next application period, there’s a chance the building will be beyond repair.
In an emotional argument, the Grays explained FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers and local organizations have given support for the Old Y renovations.
“FEMA has been bending over backwards to help,” Martha Gray said, noting the property sits in the floodplain, but they have been told with proper renovations future basement flooding can be avoided.
“We are not going to file a crappy application … I don’t want to see it torn down,” Martha Gray said.
“The absolute worst thing is they (deny the grant), and you are wide open to do whatever you want.”
The commissioners agreed to place the resolution in support of the blight removal grant on the April voting meeting agenda.