JC – Railroad Depot Foreclosed, To Be Sold

[rccrain]

Something similar happened to Tri-Cities Christian School in Kingsport. The school purchased an old school building in Lynn View for $1. TCCS spent hundreds of thousands remodeling, but it just didn't work out. Kingsport tried to take back the building from the school instead of allowing them to sell it. I not sure how that worked out, but it seemed like the school was getting railroaded. I hope Kingsport reconsidered.

[jabogitlu]

Just an update for those following this story:

JohnsonCityPress.com - Local News - Johnson City, TN (http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/09/News/article.php?ID=69555 - broken link)

[mbmouse]

“Our task is to assist a private buyer as best we can in locating grant money,” Tomita said. "

Well why the heck didn't they do that for the owner that had it instead of forcing him to foreclose on the property????

Maybe this statement says it all?? Or am I just being a cynic?
"Now, JCDA Treasurer David Tomita said, the organization hopes the lender is willing to negotiate a price with someone who can develop the property in coordination with the JCDA."

Does this mean the way JCDA wants it done using a private investors money? Or does this say the JCDA is willing to step up to the plate and help the next investor do what they want with their own property as long as it opens as something that can generate revenue?

How does everyone else read that?

[ChuckTheLocal]

It looks like to an average observer of the property that there is NO WAY in h*** the previous owner spent the 1/2 million dollars he borrowed against the property on any type of renovation....

Maybe he just took the money and ran to Asheville?

[SarahSal]

Originally Posted by mbmouse

“Our task is to assist a private buyer as best we can in locating grant money,” Tomita said. "

Well why the heck didn't they do that for the owner that had it instead of forcing him to foreclose on the property????

Maybe this statement says it all?? Or am I just being a cynic?
"Now, JCDA Treasurer David Tomita said, the organization hopes the lender is willing to negotiate a price with someone who can develop the property in coordination with the JCDA."

Does this mean the way JCDA wants it done using a private investors money? Or does this say the JCDA is willing to step up to the plate and help the next investor do what they want with their own property as long as it opens as something that can generate revenue?

How does everyone else read that?

The fact is that money spent on renovations will produce an increase in the appraised value - and thus tax $$$ for the TIF. This is surely the goal of the JCDA; to garner the type of buyer who'll go into the depot with a bucket of money to invest. JC, imho, prefers the big guys with the big $$ as opposed to those less financially affluent folks. Unfortunately, for the large part, it was the latter folks who came to downtown JC as pioneers some years ago because nobody else was willing or cared about investing in downtown. Now, after years of attrition and trying, these folks may bail because over time they lost hope and confidence in the city and the JCDA.
Also, *If* the loan company had based their loan on a good fair market appraisal, they wouldn't have lost out (although I do believe the JCDA was willing at one time to give Dorian $400K for the building, which they failed to acquire previously). But isn't this what's happened all across the country? Bad appraisals ultimately leading to loan defaults..

[mbmouse]

I thought a big issue with the prior owner was that he got the money then couldn't get the permits for the work approved??? The last article did say he did put quite a bit of that money into the immediate needed repairs, so it seems like some of the money went into the building. Trust me, with buildings like this 500k is a drop in the bucket to bring the buildings up to code and remodel, if it was a "subject too" appraisal, which is how Interbay does work, 500k was a very low appraisal and only a small percentage of the potential value of the building once complete and leased out to retail tenants.

[jabogitlu]

Originally Posted by mbmouse

Does this mean the way JCDA wants it done using a private investors money?

This is exactly how I read it and it may be that the city is withholding permits unless the renovations are to their specifications. I would put NOTHING past the Johnson City and Washington County governments.