Council moves toward building relocation

    The Mills Seed Building is one step closer to being remodeled and moved to Iowa Avenue following the Washington City Council?s meeting Wednesday night. The council voted 5-1 to authorize City Administrator Dave Plyman to negotiate with Jeremy Patterson about establishing a TIF district to help finance the project. Council members Bob Shepherd, Fred Stark, Russ Zieglowsky, Karen Wilson-Johnson and Merlin Hagie voted to authorize negotiations while Mike Roth voted against the motion.

    Patterson told the council that he wants to refurbish the F.B. Mills Seed Company Building, a three-story structure located at 604 North Seventh Ave, and move it to the former lot of the Chamber of Commerce Building on North Iowa Avenue. Patterson said his superstructure moving company will need to spend roughly one-quarter million dollars to replace the windows in the building and fix the roof and floor, all of which will be done before the building is moved.

    After the meeting, Roth explained that he was unsure of how much money was at stake and that he needed firmer numbers concerning the proposed TIF district.

    ?The big question is, he wants a TIF, but how much are we talking about?? said Roth. ?I?m not going to say ?yes? to a half-million dollars. I might have said yes to $1,000. The amount of money is the only question I have, and it wasn?t answered.?

    Patterson said he is willing to put $2 million of his own money into the project, and added that the TIF program is an essential piece of the puzzle.

    ?We?re not asking for the moon,? said Patterson. ?We do need a TIF program. Without the TIF program, we can?t make this project happen.?

    Many council members expressed a desire to see the building restored to its former glory. The building was constructed in 1900 and later became the site of a button factory.

    Bob Shepherd said he inspected the building last week and was surprised at how structurally sound it was.

    ?You could stand on the west end of the basement and look down the floor beam and see it was perfectly straight,? said Shepherd. ?What a magnificent job they did during that period of time. Where do you see that kind of work being done today??

    Patterson has a purchase agreement to buy the building from Larry and Mary Raid, the current owners. He said if the project is undertaken, Washington County is interested in buying the lot once the building has been moved.

    An assistant producer of the television show ?Heavy Haulers,? of which Patterson is the star, was at Wednesday?s council meeting to film the proceedings. The assistant producer, named Gwyn Williams, said he and the camera crew amass nearly 100 hours of raw footage each week, which is then edited to fit in a 47-minute episode. He said if footage from Wednesday?s meeting makes the final cut, it would likely appear on an episode of Heavy Haulers in May.

    Another issue that was debated at the council meeting was the upgrade to the traffic signal at Second Avenue and East Main Street, immediately southeast of the old library. The council was split 3-3 on the motion to approve the upgrade, which would have cost approximately $32,000 and altered the signal to run on a motion sensor for vehicles and a push-button for pedestrians instead of a simple timer. It was then up to Mayor Sandra Johnson to break the tie, who elected not to cast a vote, meaning the motion was not approved.

Council members Roth, Wilson-Johnson and Hagie voted for the motion while members Stark, Zieglowsky and Shepherd voted against it.

    Hagie said the current light is not satisfactory and that it needs to be changed. He said Second Avenue receives much more traffic, and yet the motorists on that street have to wait as long and as often for a red light as motorists on East Main Street. 

?Right now, this traffic light does not do an efficient job of regulating traffic or ensuring public safety,? said Hagie. ?The traffic light is on borrowed time. The wires are exposed to the elements and are starting to short-out. I?d like to see it upgraded as soon as possible, which is this construction season. This would be funded through road use tax funds, so the funding is there if the will to do it is there.?

Shepherd said he supports upgrading the traffic signal but wants to delay the upgrade to a later date.

?With me, it?s still an issue of timing,? said Shepherd. ?I agree it needs to be upgraded. It?s been an issue on our plates since I came on in 2000. I just want to see it done when we upgrade our streets and our sidewalks.?

For the full article, see the Dec. 17 edition of the Washington Evening Journal.