By Betsy Finklea
Local developer Allen Watts made an impassioned plea to the Dillon City Council tonight (Monday) to save the Dilmar buildings on Main Street.
The Dilmar buildings include the two buildings behind King’s Pizza and the old Belk building and were donated to the city a few years ago by Dilmar Oil Company.
Watts said he feels the buildings could be saved. He said he didn’t feel that taking the buildings down was a “good direction.”
Watts pointed out the problems on Hampton Street and said tearing the buildings down would expose “what’s going on down there.”
Watts said this was a big decision and a big undertaking to demolish the buildings. He said that the roofs of these buildings needed some “tender loving care” because they leaked, but that this was not a reason to demolish the buildings.
He said his children live here and he plans to die here, and he thought they should preserve the town and preserve the buildings.
Watts said he believed that the cost factor to demolish the buildings would be greater than the cost to repair them.
Mayor Todd Davis said that “a little touching up of the roof” was not accurate. He said a detailed analysis was done and it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring these buildings up to code. When asked by Watts who did the analysis/report no one could say who did it or where it came from, but it was believed that it came from Dilmar when they donated the buildings.
Davis said that he could canvass the community, and it would be 50-50 as to whether to tear it down. He said he knows it will be somewhat of a shock when the buildings are torn down, but they can’t market the buildings for sale in the condition that they are in. He said they have a plan. They hope it will work, and he thinks they can get it to where it will be an asset.
Watts said if they would give him the buildings, he would bring them up to code with his own money.
Watts said taking the buildings down will make the town look bad. He said he hated to see the city take the buildings down and put parking there on a whim.
Davis said this was not on a whim just like Lockemy Courtyard was not done on a whim or like the building taken down beside True Value was not done on a whim.
Councilman Phil Wallace said there was not much that the city had done in the last 10 to 15 years that had not been done the right way.
Watts said he would like the opportunity to preserve these properties just like the 400 other properties he had preserved in Dillon. He said he was willing to put his own money in there to bring the buildings up to where they need to be.
Wallace told Watts to keep an eye on council and catch them earlier the next time.
Watts said he was just here to fight for the buildings. He said he wanted to see the town grow, not take a quarter of the town down.
After the meeting, Watts told The Herald that he does not feel that this demolition project has been thought out properly. He said he doesn’t feel that the costs have been analyzed in comparing the cost to repair the building to the cost of tearing them down.
Watts’ plea seemed to fall on deaf ears. It was noted during the meeting by City Manager Glen Wagner that the demolition of the buildings is to begin on Tuesday (March 13th). There was no announcement of any changes to this plan after Watts’ remarks.