FOR SALE: old City Hall

Published 12:20 am Friday, June 24, 2011

Washington’s old City Hall is on the market.

The City Council, at its June 13 meeting, gave the OK for the Washington Harbor District Alliance to act as the city’s agent in an effort to sell the historic structure, also known as the DeMille Building. Trent Tetterton attended that meeting as a WHDA representative.

Mayor Archie Jennings said the city wants to sell old City Hall, completed in 1884, in a manner similar to how it sold an old house on West Second Street. The sale of that property included provisions regarding its rehabilitation.

“As a matter of fact, we’ve already developed some preliminary guidelines for just that,” Tetterton told the council June 13. “It would include timelines for completion of the project, as well as intended usage of the project, as well as step-by-stop processes to make sure we aren’t going to end up with another vacant building that an investor has bought and just let it sit there.”

“I’ve got a couple of people who are interested,” Tetterton said Thursday.

For now, he’s declining to identify those people.

Tetterton said the intent is to sell the building to someone who would use the ground floor for commercial purposes and the second floor for residential use.

“However, if the requirements of the business were such that both levels were used for commercial, then so much the better,” he said. “The intention would be to have a business there that would create high pedestrian traffic, hopefully, to contribute to the population of traffic downtown.”

City Attorney Franz Holscher told the council the building would have to be sold in a manner recognized by state law, which includes the upset-bid process.

When the city took sole possession of old City Hall from Beaufort County several years ago, there were some provisions in that takeover agreement concerning any future sale of the building. Tetterton said it’s his understanding that if the building sells for more than $60,000, that anything in excess of $60,000 would be equally divided among the city and county.

Holscher said if an offer to buy the building is less than $60,000, the county must give its permission before it can be sold for less than $60,000. He also said if the building sells for more than $60,000, the city gets credit for “any expenses that we have spent on old City Hall that were not funded by grant dollars.”

Last summer, the council decided the person or entity that bought the house on West Second Street would acquire it with certain restrictive covenants included in the deed to the property. Earlier, this year the council made it clear the new owner, Reilly Software, would be required to complete certain renovation and/or rehabilitation items regarding the house by specified dates.

Anyone or any entity interested in buying old City Hall should call Tetterton at 252-940-8799.

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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