BLYTHEWOOD – During its first budget workshop for the fiscal year 2019-20 last week, Mayor J. Michael Ross asked Town Administrator Brian Cook to confirm that the $39,000 listed under capital improvement expenditures is the year-to-date amount the Town has spent on legal and professional fees associated with the sale of the Doko Depot building in 2019.
Cook confirmed that it is.
“So that should be enough to carry us through to closing?” Ross asked
Cook said an additional $2,500 is budgeted for the closing.
The sale of the Depot has been delayed since December, 2017, for myriad reasons. In September, 2018, Ross announced a new, more serious delay – this one caused by the discovery that property title restrictions had not been disclosed to the Town in prior financing efforts with Santee-Cooper.
At last week’s council meeting, Ross said the title is now clear, but because the process took so long, the bank is requiring the purchaser to get new financing.
“They are in the process of doing that now,” Ross said.
Ross said the delay in the sale has also caused extra costs for the Town, including taking insurance out again on the building.
“Hopefully, we’ll soon be able to announce a closing,” Ross said. But he said he could not yet estimate when that would be.
Freeway Music and a second location for a popular Lexington restaurant, the Old Mill Brew Pub, are expected to be the eventual tenants of the building.
