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Long Mill Demolition – Another "Done Deal"

Here are a number of revealing documents suggesting that City officials and the current owners of the Long Mill have been hard at work for well over a year on a plan to demolish Long Mill and replace it with a new YMCA.  Yes, a new YMCA!  All of these documents were either provided by the City pursuant to FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] requests or are otherwise publicly available.

The first document is a letter from The City’s Inspection Division Director to the City Manager, Jerry Gwaltney dated March 1, 2006.  The letter discusses whether "the City could issue a demolition permit for the Long Mill at the request of the owners."  The answer to the City Manager’s question?   Not surprisingly, that the "Inspections Division is ready to issue" a demolition permit.

The City Inspector’s letter raises a number of interesting, unanswered questions:

• Who posed the question as whether Long Mill could be demolished?  At first glance, it would appear to be the letter’s recipient, the City Manager.  The City Inspector’s response suggests, however, that the question might have been posed "at the request of the owners."  What is clear from the letter is that the City Manager and, perhaps, Long Mill’s owners, have been considering the possibility of demolishing Long Mill for well over a year.
• An even more interesting unanswered question is why was the possibility of demolishing Long Mill question posed in the first place?  After all, Long Mill’s owners appear to be subject to a restriction in the deed of trust for the property providing that no more than 25% of the Long Mill may be demolished in its re-development.  (Read the original deed of trust and the inclusion of its restrictions in the subsequent deed.)  Surely, the owners were acting in good faith to comply with this covenant and not seeking a demolition order from the City that would permit them to side-step this apparent obligation.

Undoubtedly, the City Manager will insist the City’s order to demolish of Long Mill was necessitated by fire and maintenance code violations.  The owners undoubtedly will insist they had no choice but to comply with the City’s order.

The next two documents, each of which was provided by the City pursuant to a FOIA request, suggest, however, that the City and, perhaps, the owners, had an ulterior motive for proposing Long Mill’s demolition.

The first of these documents is a report prepared by the City considering possible locations for a new YMCA facility to be built "along ... the Dan River."  The first choice of the City?  Surprise, the privately-held Long Mill site.  And another possible "strong candidate?" Again, what a surprise, the privately-held White Mill site.  A second, related document is a memo from the City Planning Director to Assistant City Manager Lyle Lacy dated October 19, 2006.

What do the City’s internal planning documents say about the historic buildings then populating the Long Mill site?  Not much, other then describing them as "functionally obsolete," stating that the proposed layout "will require substantial demolition of existing facilities," and suggesting that their destruction might draw protests from "certain portions of the population."

And what does the City say about that inconvenient restriction in Long Mill’s deed of trust prohibiting demolition of more than 25% of those structures?  (See Long Mill Sale, Danville Register & Bee, January 26, 2002.)  Not a word is mentioned.  Nor is mention is made in either document of the privately-held nature of the property or the potential forfeiture of tens of millions of dollars of federal and state tax historic credits that would flow from Long Mill’s demolition.

An equally-interesting question is the City’s decision to focus its YMCA-development efforts on a privately-held property such as Long Mill.  Was the City intending to condemn the property and pay the owners? Or was it simply planning to declare the properties unsafe, clearing the way for their demolition and development by the owners and, in the process, conveniently absolving the owners of their apparent obligation not to demolish more than 25% of Long Mill’s buildings?  Perhaps, the City Manager and City Council can answer these questions.

All of this raises questions as to how much such a facility would cost and who would fund the project.

The "Myrtle Beach" YMCA design being considered by the City also is being considered by the City of North Myrtle Beach.  Myrtle Beach, a much wealthier city than Danville, is trying to raise $ 6.5 million to fund the construction of the facility.  That sum, in addition to the cost of purchasing the land, which presumably also would run into the millions of dollars, would be quite a hefty financial burden for our small YMCA organization to fund.  And certainly, the City cannot rightly argue for opening the public coffers for such a large project given the current dire economic situation in Danville.

Perhaps the City Council will one day reveal to us its funding plans.  Maybe the Danville Regional Health Foundation intends to come to the rescue.  Only time will tell.

These documents also call into question the sincerity of promises by Long Mill’s owners to develop the property or to sell it to someone who would.

A document signed by Long Mill’s owners and the City fire marshal in June of last year states that the owners will list the property with Sotheby’s for five months in an attempt to sell it.  If no buyer could be found, the owners would demolish the property.  (See City and River Partnership Agreement).  Did the owners keep this commitment and pay Sotheby’s an enormous sum of money to market the property as the City Manager insists?  A Sotheby’s representative tells us it has no record that the property was ever listed.

So it perhaps comes as no surprise that on June 8th of this year, three days after local and statewide preservation groups asked the City Council to open public hearings regarding the threatened demolition of the Long Mill, the Long Mill owners themselves requested that the City conduct a maintenance inspection of the Long Mill property.  (See City Timeline.)  The evident goal of the request?  To obtain the required demolition order from the City paving the way for Long Mill’s demolition.  Within four days of the requested inspection the City issued its Demolition Order.

All of this creates the impression that the owners of the Long Mill and the City have working hand-in-glove towards a common goal – demolition of the Long Mill. 

Sadly, the end result of all of this is that the City gets what it wants, destruction of "functionally obsolete buildings," Long Mill’s owners appear to receive an extraordinary "windfall" worth perhaps millions of dollars in being relieved of any obligation to redevelop the property, while Southside and its many residents lose a deservedly, much-cherished monument to Danville’s industrial past and, more importantly, an irreplaceable engine for future economic and social development.

Oh my, business as usual in Danville!

 
Document list:
  Letter from Inspections Division
  Original Deed of Trust
  Subsequent Deed
  YMCA Report / Proposal
  Memo from City Planning Director
  Long Mill Sale news article
  City and River Partnership Agreement
  City Timeline
  Demolition Order