Though no deal is yet in the works, two local developers have expressed interest in a pair of lots at the corner of Fifth Street and Fifth Avenue North, according to Columbus Redevelopment Authority President Marthalie Porter.
CRA began marketing those properties on July 15 with hopes of making it a gateway to the future redevelopment of the adjacent Burns Bottom neighborhood. The two lots have been listed on the commercial real estate website Loopnet — with the old Holiday Chevron priced at $429,000 and the former tattoo parlor lot listed at $129,000. It has also placed a “For Sale” sign on the properties fronting Fifth Street.
“We’ve only had our sign up for the last week. We’ve already had two calls on it. We thought that was very good,” Porter said.
CRA Vice President Mark Alexander Sr. said he would like to see a restaurant take the corner lot, leaving the smaller lot for parking or office space.
“We’d like to get a national restaurant type to locate on that corner,” Alexander said. “Then if they need that smaller lot, we would sell them that as well. But if they don’t, maybe put a small to medium business building there, kind of like where Starbucks is (on Highway 45). Something like that.”
The authority purchased the lots for a combined $348,200 in 2019, and completed cleanup efforts at the site in May.
Cleanup included demolishing two buildings, removing underground gasoline tanks and environmental testing to assure there was no soil pollution from the tanks, Porter said.
Burns Bottom progress
The newly marketed properties connect to the east with the Burns Bottom Urban Renewal Project that CRA first undertook when it was established in 2015.
CRA targeted 73 parcels in a five-block area near the Lowndes County Soccer Complex — between Third and Fourth Street North and Second and Seventh Avenue North — to convert long blighted properties into higher-value multi-use developments that include residential and commercial.
Alexander said the whole project area could, in theory, be split into as many as six different developments and add as many as 100 single-family homes or duplexes. About 15 percent of the area would be commercial, he said.
“So if a smaller developer wanted to do 15, we’d have a piece of the project for them and if they wanted to do 30 In the larger block, we can do that,” Alexander said.
The city council in 2017 approved issuing a $3.2 million bond for CRA to purchase lots in the redevelopment area and begin prepping the land for marketing.
To date, CRA has purchased all but two of the lots, its attorney Jeff Turnage said, and has $500,000 of the bond money still in the bank. Those funds are needed to acquire and demolish structures on the last two lots, Turnage said, as well as begin road and infrastructure upgrades.
It won’t be nearly enough for all the needed upgrades.
Porter said CRA is seeking an additional $6.4 million for roads, water, sewer and broadband. It asked for $1 million from the city’s American Rescue Plan Act funds but did not receive it. CRA also is lobbying the state legislature, the Mississippi Development Authority and the Appalachian Regional Commission, a federal agency established to aid in economic development.
“We have not received any funds from anybody yet. We were just trying to do a gunshot approach to whoever,” Porter said. “Maybe we can get some from here and there and then pull it together. So we’re still working on that.”
CRA is also holding onto $450,000 from the 2018 sale of the old Lee Middle School property on Military Road. That money could help with Burns Bottom infrastructure, but board member Robert Rhett said it has been designated for a different future use.
“We are trying to really hold back on that to buy more blighted property if at all possible,” Rhett said.
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