The Marine City Commission approved a listing agreement between the city and Pilot Property Group for 303 S. Water St., known as the Guy Center, at its May 19 meeting.
On April 21, commissioners approved a motion that the city sells 303 S. Water St. and holds the proceeds in a restricted fund until the city commission decides what the Guy Community Center should be with consideration to the will, resolution and legal obligations that it entails. The motion also provided City Manager Holly Tatman the authority to choose from the realtor list that the city already received for the sale of the property.
At the May 19 meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Jacob Bryson made a motion to approve the listing agreement between the city and Pilot Property Group to list 303 S. Water St. for sale for $325,000.
“When we worked through this, did we have a good comfort zone with them being the best?” Commissioner Brian Ross asked.
Tatman said that after she had done the original request for proposal process and gotten the bids back from the companies, Pilot Property Group was one of the companies that physically came out and walked through the property with her. She said that through the months that the city was going through its work group process, Pilot Property Group was one of the two companies that continued to correspond with her on about a biweekly basis, asking her how progress was going and talking to her about the market.
“Their follow through was impressive,” she said. “I know that they’ve also listed property in Marine City in the past for commercial properties, so they’re familiar with the area, so that gave me an extra comfort level, and then their pricing ultimately, where they fell on the prices for us, was kind of the final straw that I thought that they made the most sense for us.”
She said that she is working with Project Control Engineering on the survey of the property, which will allow the city to know exactly what property it is selling.
Tatman said on the north and south side of the building, the only property being sold will be the building, itself.
“There will be allowed in the real estate agreement that there will be a lifetime easement, like if they need to bring scaffolding in to work on the roof or something like that, they can do that with permission from the city so we know their trucks aren’t driving on our infrastructure or something like that,” she said. “Where we are adding property is off the back, so the east side of it, we have drawn it off and we believe we can go about 20 feet to the east, which still gives us ample room to get around, people to take pictures near the anchor, but it would allow for them to put up a deck or do something on that side of the property to utilize the view without encroaching on our park area that we are going to continue to maintain. I think it was 20 or 25 feet. Like I said, PCE’s drawing it out and we’ll secure that number, but it was no more than that.”
Commissioner William Klaassen and Ross asked if the city will give the future owners any sort of guarantee that it will not construct anything that would obstruct their river view.
“I could definitely talk to them about what makes sense to put in, and if a buyer comes forward and is concerned about that, then yeah,” Tatman said, noting that there is already a lighthouse in the park and the city would not put up another one to block it.
Commissioner Lisa Hendrick asked if there would be any other conditions on the property as far as the building goes.
“It is a historic building, and I know people are concerned about them tearing it down a putting up a giant structure there,” she said.
Tatman said that once the property is bought, the only conditions the owners have to adhere to are the city’s zoning ordinances.
“Our zoning ordinances for Water Street are pretty strict on what you can and cannot do,” she said. “But no, once somebody else owns it, we can’t really tell them other than our ordinances what they can and cannot do for their restriction and that building does not have any historical designation so we can’t demand that.”
Ross said that when he was on the planning commission, he had been attempting to start a policy where the city could make a list of historically contributing properties and to have that list be entered within the Nautical Mile District ordinance to let people know that the city sees the building as a historically contributing building.
“It at least gives a little bit of teeth to say that we see this as valuing that that particular structure is there and we will be against any efforts to raze it,” he said. “To set your mind at ease, at least a little bit, that is in the works.”
The commission voted 5-1 to approve the motion, with Hendrick dissenting. Commissioner Wendy Kellehan was absent.
Other items
Commissioners unanimously approved the contract renewal with McBride – Manley & Company P.C., the city’s auditor.
Hendrick said that the budget that was approved May 5 was short, as it had $24,000 listed for the audit and the contract states that the fee for the audit will not exceed $37,250.
“We got this after, so I didn’t have this to do the budget with, so we went based off of the prior year numbers,” Tatman said. “It says a will not exceed number; that doesn’t mean that he’s actually going to go this high. I think that … the do not exceed was kind of a one-off from everything that had happened last year with the increase in fees, so it was a safer bet to do a do not exceed. I don’t anticipate having the same type of issues as last year.”
“It’s always hard first year for a new employee that’s coming in to try and do an audit, so I think you’re going to it’s going to be a little bit more costly than normal just because of that factor,” Hendrick said.
Commissioners also unanimously approved both a motion to waive competitive bidding for the asphalt covering of the kayak launch parking lot and a motion to have Asphalt Unlimited pave the kayak launch parking lot for an amount of $8,675 using funds from the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Legacy grant.
Additionally, Tatman reported that she had received a resignation from new Treasurer Rachel Gottler that morning. The commission had approved the at-will employment agreement between Marine City and Gottler at its April 12 meeting.
“I will be moving onto my number two candidate and continuing those interviews to hopefully fill that position ASAP,” Tatman said.
