The deadline to send in a proposal to rehabilitate Gabe’s Tower was extended to Nov. 21. So far, only one person has expressed genuine interest in taking over the 13-story property, according to City officials at Tuesday’s City Commission work session.
Community Development Director Abby Shelton delivered an update to City commissioners about the future of Gabe’s Tower, adding that the state’s historic preservation team requested to take a look at the tower on Sept. 23 to assess the building’s historic relevance to the community.
Though the state’s decision could have a lot to do with whether the property stays or goes, Shelton said it wasn’t entirely up to the state to make that decision, even though the state’s historic preservation has identified the property as eligible for the national registers.
“We have negotiation power with them,” Shelton said. “[We’ve been] keeping them involved and letting them know we’ve done everything we can.”
Shelton said the interior state of Gabe’s Tower during that assessment was bleak. Everything was removed from the inside of the tower after an environmental study was conducted, including all furniture. Several windows were broken, and the pool was seemingly beyond repair.
Public Works Director Wayne Shelton performed an extensive investigation into determining whether the Gabe’s Tower location could serve as a new transit center if torn down. Assistant City Manager Lelan Hancock said officials had a pretty good idea of what the building’s development would require.
“Wayne Shelton has done investigations into the possibility of locations and alternate locations to that site, as well as work out the footprint of what that building should like, some of the amenities that it needs to service a patron to use it,” Hancock said. “We’ve got quite a good idea of what it would need to move forward.”
Grant opportunities will play a huge role in whether the transit center relocates to that site, Hancock said.
“We’re prepared to move to different directions, depending on how the outcome is. We’ve got different rules depending on the grants that we seek,” Hancock said. “As soon as we work through the details and processes of meeting those grant requirements, Wayne can decide how we move forward from there.”
Hanock said Wayne and his staff were looking for those grant opportunities constantly.
City Manager Nate Pagan said the City wasn’t necessarily looking for additional properties for the relocation of the transit system, but at other opportunities for the lot left behind should Gabe’s Tower be torn down.
“We could potentially redevelop the site, or seek to redevelop the site for other commercial or professional uses, if the commission decided they didn’t want to relocate our transit facility to that location,” he said.
Watson insinuated that he felt it was important for the City to begin fleshing out the details for the possibility of putting a transit center in Gabe’s Tower’s place.
Shelton also said the single person who’s expressed serious interest in redeveloping the property is also being taken seriously by the City as well, but that that person would need to meet a lot of standards to be considered for approval. An evaluation process performed by the City scores the developer’s experience, tax credit history, funding and the level of participation being asked from the City.
“It’s a matter of feasibility,” Shelton said. “We’ll narrow it down and deliver it to City administration as to whether or not we really allow this to happen. We don’t want to see another 25 years go by.”
Mayor Tom Watson guessed it would take two years to get the entire process completed, whether the building’s redeveloped or torn down, and City officials said it would all depend on the state and federal grants received.
“I’ve seen this project sitting up here for a while, and I’d like to see the thing come down myself,” said Commissioner and Realtor Jeff Sanford. “I don’t see how anybody can put the money into that location and make anything work.”
Community Vision Funds and TIF funds would be used to demolish the property and redevelop it into the new transit facility. Hancock said $600,000 had been put aside for the demolition of Gabe’s Tower, but that it could cost more. The building could be torn down faster by using local funds, but federal funds would be ideal in paying for the cost of the project, he said.
“If we’re going to use federal funds, we have to go through the federal process of identifying the environmental review,” Shelton said. “The state historic preservation has identified as a national register so that’s another thing we have to go through. If we use local funds — if we demolish the property and have a plan [of redevelopment], so if we were to go to another RFP after those proposals after the building is demolished, it’d be put back on the tax rolls, but we would not be able to use federal funds.”
