Work To Restore Bristol’s Train Station Nearly Complete

By David McGee
Staff Writer / Bristol Herald Courier
Published: July 15, 2008

BRISTOL, Va. – Finalizing an arrangement with investors is all that prevents the Twin City’s historic train station from finally reopening, a member of the ownership group said Friday.

The Trainstation Foundation is working with a Chicago law firm to secure more than $1 million in state and federal historic tax credits for investors, said Tom Davenport, a member of the foundation’s board of directors.

Those investors – an unnamed individual and a group – have agreed to buy the credits in exchange for a five-year ownership stake in the building.

The opening would conclude a $5 million-plus, nearly decade-long odyssey of saving and restoring the building listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

“About a year and a half ago, we were told we wouldn’t be able to do historic tax credits,” Davenport said. “We didn’t give up, and we were able to find counsel in Chicago that does nothing but historic tax credits.”

All parties now are close to finalizing the agreement, which also depends on final approval from the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.

“We are really close to having the attorneys do their due diligence,” Davenport said. “It could happen as early as next week.”

In recent days, both the city and Regions Bank released liens on the property to allow the deal to happen. Once secured, the $1 million will go toward paying off a line of credit extended by the bank.

Under the arrangement, the foundation will become a general partner in a new for-profit entity, and the investors will be limited partners, Davenport said.

“The reason for the for-profit is because only a for-profit entity can receive the tax credits,” Davenport said. “The new company will be a subsidiary of the Trainstation Foundation. At the end of the five years, the foundation will purchase the facility back – for less than $100,000 – and then the foundation will own it.”

To date, renovation work has been funded by a combination of federal and state transportation enhancement grants and private donations.

The foundation purchased the property in 1999 and has spent most of the past decade trying to raise the money and complete the work. The delays, combined with the pace of the federal funding cycle and ever-rising construction costs, mean the final price tag will top the original $4 million estimate by more than $1 million.

“We understand people have become concerned with the delay, and nobody wants this facility to open more than those of us working on this,” Davenport said.

The building itself is “99 percent” complete, he said, and only a few minor details need to be completed.

In addition to rental space for offices, the building includes a 3,000-square-foot public space that already has proved popular. Davenport said about 20 tentative events had to be rescheduled this spring and summer because the station couldn’t open.

“We have a wedding reception scheduled for Aug. 2. That could still be held here, but it’s too close to call right now,” he said. “We can’t place the building into service until we get the tax credits completed. Once we get the investors in place, all that needs to be done will be to get the [certificate of occupancy].”

On Friday, workers from Bristol Virginia Utilities were installing cabling to provide wireless Internet service.

The foundation has tentative leases for two of the four available office spaces and a ticket office is in place, should passenger rail service ever return to Bristol.

The public space includes a catering kitchen, but preliminary plans to establish a restaurant in the basement didn’t materialize because of cost and issues with the historic tax credits.

“We were talking with some folks, but we would have had to put an addition onto the plaza area [along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard] and that would have complicated the historic tax credit piece.”

The foundation and both Bristols each contributed $200,000 toward the original $600,000 purchase from former owner Arthur Slaughter.

In the years since, the foundation has secured $1.97 million in federal transportation enhancement grants and a nearly $1.2 million congressional earmark in 2006, records show.

The earmark funds are distributed over several years with the remainder to be released during the current fiscal year, said Virginia Department of Transportation spokeswoman Michelle Earl.

“Programmed into our current six-year plan is $315,000 for 2009 and $76,000 for 2010,” Earl said.

VDOT also provided a 25 percent match for the 2006 earmark, while most matching funds have come through private donations to the foundation.

The project qualifies for funding under VDOT guidelines because it is scheduled to be used to help promote tourism and because of the potential for passenger rail, Earl said.

With or without passenger rail, the building is expected to attract lots of interest, said Christina Blevins, executive director of Believe in Bristol’s Main Street program.

“It will be a new chapter for downtown,” Blevins said. “We think it will draw people to downtown, and the possibilities are endless of what we can do there.”

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