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Split
Council Approves Office Space
Lexington City Council was split on its decision regarding a conditional use permit allowing large portions of the Rockbridge Building on South Main Street to be used as office space for Washington and Lee University.
The permit was approved in a 4-3 vote last week, with Mayor Frank Friedman casting the deciding vote. He joined Council members David Sigler, Chuck Smith and Leslie Straughan in voting for the permit, while Vice Mayor Marylin Alexander and Council members Charles Aligood and Nicholas Betts voted against it.
The permit allows W&L to use the upper floor and the rear part of the main floor as office space, and the basement level of the building as an assembly space. The front part of the building on the main level, which fronts on Main Street, will remain as retail space. John Adamson, who owns the building, had already begun renovations on the building before realizing a conditional use permit was needed for the university to use the building.
The vote followed a public hearing on the permit in which some city residents and business owners urged Council to deny the permit. Tina Miller, who owns a business downtown, acknowledged that both W&L and Virginia Military Institute “are a crucial part of Lexington’s success” and that her concerns were not exclusive to the university using the space – she’d feel the same way if any of the area colleges wanted to have offices in the Rockbridge Building.
Allowing the university to use the building as office space, she argued, is a “slippery slope” that “would have adverse impacts on the character of the neighborhood.
“Instead of having a diverse mix of businesses within the downtown, there would be a disproportionate amount of W&L using business and potential housing space,” she said. “Like a shopping center, a downtown needs a critical mass of retail and restaurants to be a destination that people want to go … You need the restaurants, you need the retail, so people will say, ‘Oh let’s go downtown.’” Michael Perry, who lives on South Jefferson Street, raised several concerns, including conflicts of interest from Sigler, Smith and Straughan. All three acknowledged the conflict prior to the discussion and public hearing of the permit, since their spouses all work for W&L.
Since they are part of a group “of three or more” who are affected by the transaction, they each declared they were “not disqualified from participating in this transaction because … I can participate in the transaction fairly, objectively and in the public interest.” Perry argued they should have recused themselves from the discussion.
“Whether it is legally to the letter of the law that you have to recuse yourself or not, the mere appearance of a conflict of interest, I think, is enough for you to recuse yourself.”
Perry also raised concerns of the impacts on the downtown area by the university continuing to rent space in buildings that could be used for businesses or for housing. He also raised concerns about the impact on the already limited parking in the city by the W&L employees who will work in the building.
“The last thing we want in our town is to turn into another Blacksburg because the major educational institution has gobbled up the prime real estate in our town. To keep our charm and diversity of businesses downtown, I urge you to deny the conditional use permit.”
Though he was unable to attend the meeting, former City Councilman Patrick Rhamey sent a letter to members of Council encouraging them to deny the permit.
“Washington and Lee has one of the largest endowments per student in America,” he wrote. “Their students come from top 1% households in greater proportions than all but a small handful of other rich private schools. By permitting their continued creep, no matter in what volume, you are progressively increasing the burden on your own voters. You are making it so that with each one of these ill-advised decisions, the burden of hosting rich kids falls squarely on your own voters’ pockets.”
Skip Ravenhorst also spoke during the public hearing, speaking in favor of the permit. He currently works in the building immediately adjacent to The Rockbridge Building, and had worked in the building in the past. When he was there, he said, the office space in the building was full at “a couple of peak moments” but largely went unused. He also spoke in favor of the work Adamson was doing on the building.
“The work he is doing is very good and wouldn’t get done otherwise and would make the whole community safer,” he said. -During Council’s discussion, Smith and Straughan both cited the fact that the university having offices in the space would mean more people working – and potentially shopping and eating – downtown, which would be beneficial to the city.
“Our comp plan says we need more people downtown,” Smith said. “Main Street Lexington says we need more people downtown. These offices will put more people downtown. I don’t care how they’re used [as long as] they’re used effectively and efficiently and do the things that the city wants to have happen in our downtown to improve our downtown economy and improve our buildings downtown. I have a real hard time denying this permit.
“How we feel about W&L is one thing, but the use is what is in front of us,” he said.
Sigler agreed with the call to increase foot traffic downtown, but his main reason for supporting the permit was the fact that Adamson had committed to keeping retail space in the front of the building’s first floor.
Betts cited the potential impacts on parking as a major concern for him, as well as the loss of housing units that had previously been in the building. He and Sigler both made inquiries about including provisions about where the W&L employees using the building would park, either in the conditional use permit or in Adamson’s rental agreement with the university.
City planner Arne Glaeser said he was hesitant to include any such provisions in the permit because the city doesn’t have an off-street parking requirement for businesses in the downtown commercial district and encouraged Council to be “very specific” about the potential impact if they wanted to do that.
Adamson said that he would be open to working collaboratively with the university and downtown business owners to come up with a solution to the concerns. He noted that the Rockbridge Building was close to the university’s campus, so it was possible that employees could park on campus and then walk to the office as opposed to parking downtown.
For Alexander, the main issue with the permit was that the space would be used exclusively by W&L.
“If this proposal included housing and public commercial spaces, I’d be allin,” she said. “More offices for private use I don’t see as conducive to balancing our downtown efforts that we need to continue trying to make happen. I feel like this is most likely to be approved, but I also feel like my voting in a particular way would send a message that we, as a city government … need to refocus our efforts on economic development of our downtown. If we don’t, we could lose sight of other opportunities to find the best possible uses of the spaces completely.”
Aligood suggested that some discussions be held, either in a work session or some other meeting, to better define the term ‘institutional creep’ so City Council could better decide on these issues in the future.
Friedman offered his definition of institutional creep, citing VMI’s expansion on North Main Street and W&L’s efforts to build new housing in the area known as the McLaughlin Triangle as examples.
“I look at individuals, whether it be Mr. Adamson or other people that are sitting in here tonight, that own buildings and properties in downtown Lexington, or have made investments into their buildings; who they choose as their tenants is not as critical,” he said.
Friedman also noted that within the past 25 years, City Council and the Lexington Downtown Development Association (now Main Street Lexington) were encouraging the university to “be a better neighbor and integrate in the community” at a time when it was planning on being more insular and separate from the city.
“They’ve begun doing that and now we find ourselves saying, ‘We want you to integrate, but on our terms,’ and I’m not sure that’s the best situation,” he said.
Friedman also said that a bigger concern for him are the buildings that are in worse shape than the Rockbridge Building was prior to Adamson’s renovations.
Straughan made the motion to approve the permit and Smith provided the second.
Permit For Old Courthouse Renewed Council also held a public hearing and took action on another conditional use permit application by Adamson, this one for the old courthouse building at 2 S. Main St.
Adamson rents most of the building to W&L for office space, while a room in the back of the building has been set aside for public meetings. That was part of the original conditional use permit, which was issued in 2009 for a period of 15 years.
Adamson sought renewal of the permit, with updated definitions to match current city code, and continued use of the public meeting space. He also requested that the uses be granted “in perpetuity” subject to the continued use of the building under the conditions of the permit.
Following a hearing in August, the Lexington Planning Commission recommended approval of the permit for a period of 15 years, at which point it would need to be renewed.
Glaeser, in his presentation of the permit to Council, said that his recommendation was to renew the permit without the 15-year renewal, as the city has mechanisms for discontinuing permits if the use is not being met and stopped setting renewal periods for permits in 2016.
Ravenhorst also spoke during that public hearing, recalling that he had been on the committee to decide what to do with the old courthouse building when the new courthouse on Randolph Street was built. The committee, he said, had a difficult time trying to figure out what to do with the building until Adamson came along with a “hare-brained scheme” to rent the building to W&L.
“It’s worked out great. I think they’ve been a wonderful neighbor and I would encourage you to renew [the permit],” he said.
Betts moved to renew the permit, following the staff’s recommendation of not including a 15-year renewal. Sigler seconded the motion, which passed unanimously.
