The Landmark Hotel will not languish alone: The north side of the 100 block of E. Main Street, which is owned by Keith Woodard and has long been boarded up and seemingly empty (aside from Derriere de Soie) for some time is likely to remain so.
“The site plan has been denied,” says Neighborhood Planner Brian Haluska. “The file is closed.” The nine-story building at the intersection of First and Main streets was put on ice in late 2007 by developer Keith Woodard.
“At this point, we’ve put the project on hold for an uncertain amount of time,” Woodard told C-VILLE then. “We think we may have to go a different direction with it.”
The direction, however, is still to be determined. Haluska, who has been following the project, said that the site plan was denied because the developer did not respond to the city’s last set of recommendations and comments “in a timely fashion,” between 45 and 60 days. “They have the option of requesting a six-month extension, which I believe they did,” said Haluska. After the first extension, the developer is allowed to ask for more time, but the extension is at the discretion of Director of Neighborhood Development Services Jim Tolbert. Woodard did not immediately return C-VILLE’s calls.
According to Haluska, the additional extension was granted. “It’s pretty standard, when the time runs out … to send them a letter to them saying they have 15 days,” he says. “I sent them a 15-day letter, I didn’t hear from them. The file is closed.”
Originally, the site plan called for office and retail space in addition to about 80 condo units. The building was also to feature an underground “automatic valet” parking structure. But the Board of Architectural Review (BAR) denied a proposal to demolish an interior wall and was opposed to the building’s magnitude.
The city has, since then, re-examined and changed the zoning of the Downtown Mall that allows buildings to be 70 feet tall by right. Yet, a special permit could allow a building to rise to 101 feet.
“The interesting thing about it is that it happened with two projects at the same time. This one and the 201 Avon project,” says Haluska. “It was kind of a race to see who could get them first, but none of them actually have started at this point.”
Haluska says one example of what has happened in the development world is the Gleason, on Garrett Street. That project “was originally submitted with six stories, one commercial and five residential,” he says. Now, “what’s being built is three floors of commercial and three floors of residential. The economy has changed on them.”
One thing unlikely to change is the abandoned look of Woodard’s Mall buildings. “It can keep looking like that indefinitely,” says Haluska.
C-VILLE welcomes news tips from readers. Send them to news@c-ville.com.
