Austin City Council members showed their commitment to downtown renovation Monday night with two votes – the first approving the $775,000 bond sale that will finance almost all of the restoration and removal of blight in the downtown; the second for restoring the exterior of the old Wold Drug Store building.

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

Austin City Council members showed their commitment to downtown renovation Monday night with two votes – the first approving the $775,000 bond sale that will finance almost all of the restoration and removal of blight in the downtown; the second for restoring the exterior of the old Wold Drug Store building.

Both votes were possible because of the city’s Tax Increment Financing District No. 10, which was created expressly to attack areas of blight downtown. So far the council has purchased the Wold building and the former Silver Bullet bar and Arcade, and condemned one other bar, Spanky’s. Most of the other downtown bars also were included in the district as possible targets for removal or renovation, as well as many other downtown properties.

The council voted unanimously on both resolutions.

"I think using TIF 10 monies to accomplish the improvements to the Wold building is a good idea," at-large council member Dick Chaffee said about hiring a company to do the tuckpointing and other brick repair to the outside of the building.

"The building has just been sitting there since we bought it," Third Ward council member Dick Lang said. "It’s an eyesore now. Let’s advance with the project."

Vernon Bascom Co. will do the repair work on the building this fall because the original bidder, Karr Tuckpointing, couldn’t do the work until spring. Estimated costs for repairing the north and east walls were just under $50,000. The city also will hire different contractors to replace the windows in the building and the shingles on the building’s unique cupola.

That’s where the bond sale comes in. Although the money to finance the district will come from the new taxes on Hormel Foods Corp.’s Corporate Office South, rather than waiting to spend each increment as it comes in, the city is selling the bonds up front and will pay off the bonds with the tax increments over the next 25 years.

The bond sale is expected to occur Oct. 16, and the official vote to accept bids will occur at the council’s Oct. 18 meeting. Once the sale is actually completed, money already spent by the city will be paid back from those funds. The money for the Wold improvements will be taken from the city’s storefront loan fund, untapped since its inception because of excessive red tape.

City Administrator Pat McGarvey said he thought at least one out-of-town business owner was interested in purchasing the Wold building from the city – almost certainly for less than the city will have in the building – and continuing with its renovation.

"Do not expect to get back every dollar the city has in the purchase and tuckpoint expenditure," he wrote council members about the Wold building. "We will attempt to get the most we can while at the same time allow the private party to invest an amount that brings this historic building back to life with a reasonable opportunity for a successful business on Main Street."

The city is accepting formal proposals for businesses to go in the building until Sept. 29.