DANVILLE — The town council here voted 4-1 to sell a piece of property it recently bought and acquire another to help ease the parking situation downtown. But not without some concerns.
There is someone interested in buying the lot at 64 E. Marion St., where the True Colors business was once located. The town paid $277,500 for the lot for the purpose of adding parking downtown for town and county government employees.
Officials hope the sale of that property can be used to buy the parcel at 55 E. Main St., again for added parking. That lot is empty.
“What we can sell East Marion for more than covers what we can buy 55 E. Main for, plus there’s no demolition costs,” Council President Jeff Martin said.
But Councilman Richard Burrows isn’t sold on the idea. He was the lone no vote on the proposal, noting that the town has spent almost $846,000 so far on four lots for additional parking. He’s also skeptical that they’ll get back the money they spent on the East Marion land.
“Where are we getting all this money at?” Burrows said. “I want the public to know I’m against all of it. We’re spending a lot of money.”
Others think it has the potential to be a good deal.
“I think we’ve stumbled into an opportunity here,” Martin said. “Indeed we may not get back every dollar we spent, but in the big picture we’re going to have a better situation for less money.”
Councilman Mike Neilson noted how much the situation has changed.
“We have to roll with the punches,” he said. “We have to be flexible with this.”
The town has also bought two lots on Indiana Street and one on Broadway near the Hendricks County Historical Museum. Altogether, there’s estimated to be 78 parking spaces.
AssistantTownManager Laura Parker said, “In a perfect world, if we could build a garage tucked away so it’s not highly visible but we could direct people to it, we wouldn’t have to acquire so much surface parking.”
But with costs of between $10,000 and $15,000 per parking space to build a garage, the town can’t afford such an option.
Officials hadn’t yet contacted the owners of 55 E. Main about buying the property. Kevin Dogan, the town’s attorney, was at the meeting to provide background on use of eminent domain should that become necessary. But officials stressed that would be their last option.
“Basically, I see this tool for local government as a last-ditch effort,” Town Manager Gary Eakin said. “Everything we have to do, we do as amicably as we can.”
Dogan said eminent domain is “a power that is very controversial. There are a lot of critics out there. But it’s a power that’s not exercised very frequently by cities and towns.”
It’s a process that entails many procedural steps. Not following them exactly, Dogan said, opens the door to costly and time-wasting legal challenges.
Plus, “The state legislator has not made it a very attractive option for municipalities to use,” he said.
For instance, the law was changed in recent years so that a court can rule if an offer made by a town government for property is too low, or a court-appointed appraisal comes back higher, the town must not only pay the higher appraisal but the property owner’s legal expenses up to $25,000.
“It puts a government entity at some risk of paying much more than the actual value of the property,” Dogan said.
Officials can’t make an offer on the property until two appraisals have been done.
In other business, the town council approved partial closure of Washington Street on the courthouse square starting at 10 a.m. June 19. In celebration of the Gallery on the Square’s first anniversary, artists will recreate the famous “American Gothic” painting using 4,000 slices of bread.
They’ll grid the painting on 16.3x21-feet of plywood on the street in front of the gallery. Bread, toast, and burnt toast will represent different color tones for the piece. The bread will be attached to the plywood using a flour-based paste. Artists plan to have the recreation done by 2 p.m. that day. They’ll leave it up for visitors on the square for that night’s concert.
“It’s a publicity stunt,” said Rose Richard, one of the artists behind the project. “We’re artists. We’re a little bit crazy.”
wade.coggeshall@flyergroup.com
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