The City of Clinton is asking for a partnership with the LCDC in a bounce-back project for the Uptown area, following the Aug. 27 devastating fire.
“It was every town’s worst nightmare,” City Manager Tom Brooks told the Laurens County Development Corporation’s board, meeting Tuesday at the Center for Advanced Manufacturing in Laurens. The City is proposing that the Clinton Economic Development Corporation invest $250,000 and the LCDC invest $250,000 in a parking lot that will facilitate the $5.8 Million development of the Industrial Supply Building into apartments.
“We need some good news,” Brooks said of the half million dollar investment, “and that is what I was hoping to get today.”
The LCDC board, composed of business and education leaders from throughout Laurens County, is doing its due diligence.
It is asking its Finance Committee to examine the corporation’s Reinvestment Fund to see, first, if it has $250,000 and, second, if that fund could be replenished in a timely manner.
Board Member, and Laurens County Council Member representing Clinton, David Tribble made a motion to appropriate the money; but Board Member, and County Council Chairman, Brown Patterson made a superseding motion for the financial study - Patterson’s motion was accepted by the full board.
“This building is right in the heart of our town, and I’ve never loved it the way it is,” Tribble said, of the need to see the Industrial Supply Building renovated.
Some board members expressed reservations, saying the idea was “sprung on” them and expressing doubt that they could provide full support with the full financial data. “I don’t know what other questions we can answer,” Brooks said.
Clinton businessman Chip Cooper, who owns a quarter interest in the idea of bringing 21 new apartments to Uptown Clinton, said time is of the essence since the project has been about a year in the making, and investors could look elsewhere if there appears to be foot-dragging. Patterson said he did want not to table Tribble’s motion because that would send the signal that the money proposal could not move forward until the board’s November meeting.
This way, the finance committee will amass data, and it will be transmitted electronically to board members who then also could vote electronically, yes or no. The last time Clinton made a request of this size for a public project was of the County Council for money to develop Presbyterian College School of Pharmacy parking lots, also in the Uptown/North Broad Street area.
Cooper said the evening of the fire he texted his partners to say, “now is the time” to move forward and give Clinton a shot in the arm.
The Aug. 27 fire displaced four businesses — the entire block was saved because PC brought its former bookstore on Musgrove Street up to modern fire codes earlier in the 2000s, and installed a firewall - and one business has now re-opened, Family Eye Care, in the next block up on Musgrove Street.
The new apartments were cast as an answer to some inadequate housing concerns — PC graduate students, nurses and physicians at the Laurens County Hospital, new industries hiring new workers - within the greater Clinton area.
“It’s not all about building industrial parks,” Brooks said.
“Industrial parks ARE important, believe me, we’re trying to build one but (when new industries come in) where are (workers) going to live?”
Cooper said his grandfather started a business in 1938 in the Industrial Supply Building. The proposal for apartments ties parking for the tenants with city parking in an arrangement whereby the city will buy back the entire parking lot. That will have to wait until full construction is done, because it wouldn’t make sense to pave the parking lot until all construction equipment is removed from the area. Cooper also has purchased a former gas station, that was in the process of being developed into a sports bar, that sits beside the Industrial Supply Building - that was to ensure proper egress for the proposed, large parking lot.
This building and an adjacent, city parking lot are two blocks away from the Musgrove Street fire location.
The City of Clinton also has a building under contract for development at the corner of North Broad and West Main streets, and has torn down a condemned building nearby with the aim of developing a pocket park.
Behind the small park is a narrow street, Wall Street, that also may undergo revitalization by a developer.
Cooper said one the buildings that burned, the House of Pizza, which he had remodeled in the early 2000s, was “an incredible building.” It used to be Roses 5 & Dime, and before that, The Beehive mercantile store.
The LCDC board members did not generally object to providing the parking lot money.
But they were concerned about the “vote now” aspects of the presentation and wanted to be sure the funds tapped could be replenished in a timely manner, and were not to be tied up indefinitely.
Initial information was that, after money already designated for projects, there is about $400,000 in the Reinvestment Fund, and committing $250,000 would bring that fund for countywide, infrastructure investments down to $150,000. There was no clear answer as to when additional money would be going into the Reinvestment Fund. Remodeling Industrial Supply into the apartments likely will take 8 to 10 months, the board was told.
In addition to the proposed new apartments, Clinton has built a splash pad in nearby Vance Park. A new Clinton Public Library will open soon, funded by the Capital Projects Sales Tax. And the city will be looking for grant funds to repave an adjacent lot, where the city has Food Trucks Monday and other events.
However, Brooks said, it is unclear how long it will take to bring back to full capacity the business corridor on Musgrove Street.
Dealing with 5 insurance companies, a SLED investigation, the Governor’s Office and FEMA, Brooks said, “There is no direct path of funding. We’re going to have to get creative.”
