Impressions building up for makeover

Published 12:40 am Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Finally. Improvements to the city-owned building leased by Impressions Marketing Group are past the talking stage.

During its June 13 meeting, the Washington City Council unanimously approved entering into an installment-purchase agreement (not to exceed $800,000) with RBC Bank to fund those improvements. The improvements are the result of a protracted lease negotiation between the city and Impressions, located in the former Hamilton Beach/Proctor-Silex site on Springs Road.

In February, the council approved a lease with Impressions for the city-owned property. Impressions has been leasing that property from the city since 2006.

The lease is for five years, with an option for Impressions to renew for two additional years. There’s also a provision for Impressions to extend that extension for two years.

Impressions will pay a base rent at the rate of $392,736 annually. It also will pay additional rent at the rate of $176,731 annually under terms pertaining to the  improvements to the leased premises. The total annual rent comes to $569,467.

The agreement requires the city to obtain financing in the amount of $769,566 for building-improvement projects. If the city is unable to secure that financing, its obligations for improvements to the property are as follows:

  • Up to $457,430 for roof replacement/repair;
  • Up to $26,061 for an interior fire-protection system;
  • Up to $82,800 for an exterior fire-protection system;
  • Up to $100,000 for other repairs.

In August 2008, the Washington Daily News reported that a memorandum from the city manager to the council and then-Mayor Judy Meier Jennette stated that negotiations had “essentially been completed” with the Beaufort County Committee of 100, Impressions and Hamilton Beach regarding the sale of the building to the Committee of 100, leasing the building to Impressions Marketing Group and continuing environmental-contamination responsibilities on the part of Hamilton Beach.

That proposal has not been realized.

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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