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Archive for: August 2010
By John Sherwood
thetimesherald.comAugust 21, 2010
The plan to revive the long-empty Sperry's Department Store Building in Port Huron is a million dollars to the good.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Friday announced it will provide $1 million to the city to support conversion of the building into new professional and retail space. HUD also will guarantee a $1.5 million private loan committed by the city to further promote economic development downtown. The money is linked to the project's inclusion of a business-incubator project that is likely to be housed in the building's spacious basement and is expected to create and retain 195 jobs. The award announcement gladdened the heart of Tom Johnson, who with Dave White owns Landmark Development, the Boyne City-based development company that aims to make the building thrive again. "We're very pleased," Johnson said Friday. "This is a big, important step toward assembling the funding necessary." Johnson and his partner have estimated an $11 million total cost for the project, and a lot of that money is not in hand. "There are a number of funding sources that we have been working on, toward making this project successful. One is tax credits from different sources," Johnson said. "We are waiting to hear back about our tax-credit applications. We have one for a brownfield tax credit from the Michigan Economic Development Corp." He said it probably would take a couple of months for that process alone to be completed. Johnson has said the company is considering six to eight financing options to make the project work. For example, the company is seeking state and federal tax credits because the building will be made energy-efficient and will be registered on the National Register of Historic Places. Johnson said Friday he was gratified the federal funding came in so quickly. "They (application processes) sometimes can take longer, and this came in the soonest. That makes us a lot more confident," Johnson said. "Remember, it's just one piece, but having that in place is a big help." The building, built in 1922, once housed Sperry's, a department store that served as the main shopping hub for the region for decades. It contains 60,000 square feet, or about 14,000 square feet per floor. The funding is provided through HUD's Brownfields Economic Development Initiative, which supports community development in environmentally distressed locations. HUD's announcement was greeted with general applause by local officials. Port Huron City Manager Bruce Brown described the work done by Landmark Development as "astute." "It's one more success story that these guys have been able to pull together," said St. Clair County Administrator Shaun Groden, who also is president of the Economic Development Alliance of St. Clair County. Groden said the building "would be a great location for a facility to bring more people downtown. ... If there's an iconic building downtown, that's got to be the one." "These are exciting times," said D. Scott Beedon, the county's small business concierge. "We've worked long and hard to get these applications in. ... The developers see this as a game-changer, and I have to agree. It can only mean good things for downtown." Johnson described a best-case scenario in which all funding is obtained in time to launch a 10-month renovation phase. Under that scenario, the building could be ready for occupancy by the late summer of 2011. "We want to demonstrate that this is something we can accomplish in the foreseeable near future, but we're being careful that, until we get all the approvals in, we don't say it's a done deal. But this certainly has made a big difference."
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The following Hooker DeJong projects recently received USGBC Certification: LEED Gold for Nichols headquarters in Norton Shores LEED Certified for The Hines Building in Downtown Muskegon Share:
Muskegon, Mich. – Hooker DeJong Architects & Engineers of Muskegon was honored by the Ohio Capital Corporation for Housing (OCCH) for their redesign work on an affordable housing apartment complex in Newark, Ohio.
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