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Update on potential Sheetz in Cross Lanes. I saw crews putting up fencing around part of the parking lot of the former Big Sandy Outlet Center (I think) across from the Reserve Center. I didn't see any signs, but something is going to be put there.
They have starting moving dirt there, as well as taking down the large sign that was on that corner of the lot. The bordered area is large enough for a sizable sheetz with a drive-tru and car wash.
So I emailed the folks at Little General to see what the status was on their efforts to open several Dunkin Donuts in the area. This was their response.
Quote:
Currently, we are still looking for opportunities in real estate. We still have intentions on opening Dunkin in the Charleston area.
I'm hoping that this is simply a canned response and that they have already secured land. If not, they will end up like Sheetz struggling to find land.
So I emailed the folks at Little General to see what the status was on their efforts to open several Dunkin Donuts in the area. This was their response.
I'm hoping that this is simply a canned response and that they have already secured land. If not, they will end up like Sheetz struggling to find land.
Buying property would seem like an easy thing to do in Charleston, especially when so many stores fronts are darkened in some areas, but when you get into the real estate aspects of things you realize why nothing happens here. Almost every building in the CBD is owned by a consortium of interests that live outside the state. Often these holdings are passed from one generation to the next in the form of highly tangled trusts with no way of pealing off a single property without some major lifting by a legal firm.
Capitol St is littered with such holdings and it is why I have occasionally posted I just want the city to burn to the ground in some cataclysmic Steven Spielberg fashion or some madman in a bulldozer has a building leveling spree. The ones that are owned by a locally living person more often than not has brain damage and thinks land in Charleston is worth a million dollars a square inch.
Buying property would seem like an easy thing to do in Charleston, especially when so many stores fronts are darkened in some areas, but when you get into the real estate aspects of things you realize why nothing happens here. Almost every building in the CBD is owned by a consortium of interests that live outside the state. Often these holdings are passed from one generation to the next in the form of highly tangled trusts with no way of pealing off a single property without some major lifting by a legal firm.
Capitol St is littered with such holdings and it is why I have occasionally posted I just want the city to burn to the ground in some cataclysmic Steven Spielberg fashion or some madman in a bulldozer has a building leveling spree. The ones that are owned by a locally living person more often than not has brain damage and thinks land in Charleston is worth a million dollars a square inch.
THIS. All of this (save for maybe the leveling of the city). The Ott Building, for instance, had something like 15 separate trusts. Heck, just getting a small plot of land for a pump station takes tracking down multiple people, many of whom have died and no one can figure out the next of kin. It can be a nightmare.
THIS. All of this (save for maybe the leveling of the city). The Ott Building, for instance, had something like 15 separate trusts. Heck, just getting a small plot of land for a pump station takes tracking down multiple people, many of whom have died and no one can figure out the next of kin. It can be a nightmare.
Elewis I am open to any other way out of this quagmire of entangled trusts that does not involve a Chicago Fire type scenario, can you offer me one? These trusts are perpetual, molding away in some file in a box in a storage unit for some law firm that does not even know they have it in their firm, because like the trust, they got the file as part of buying out some other firm when the Old Man retired and the kids wanted to sell it all for a cruise.
Elewis I am open to any other way out of this quagmire of entangled trusts that does not involve a Chicago Fire type scenario, can you offer me one? These trusts are perpetual, molding away in some file in a box in a storage unit for some law firm that does not even know they have it in their firm, because like the trust, they got the file as part of buying out some other firm when the Old Man retired and the kids wanted to sell it all for a cruise.
Oh, I know that would be an effective solution, but I'm just adverse to widespread destruction of city properties. Unfortunately, I'm not well-versed in real estate or law to offer any other solution.
Oh, I know that would be an effective solution, but I'm just adverse to widespread destruction of city properties. Unfortunately, I'm not well-versed in real estate or law to offer any other solution.
The real solution is somewhat ugly and puts the political career on the line for a Mayor and Councilor. City ordinances are drafted that have a moderate time frame because they will be litigiously challenged. In these ordnances, the city would issue to all property owners within the city that they have 1 year, 2 years or some other timeframe to reply to an enquiry or other mandate about property X. If for any reason the property owner(s) fails to reply in the given time a lien is placed on the property that grows exponentially and daily that is not refundable even if the summons is answered at a later date. Once the lien exceeds the value of the property as determined by an uninterested 3rd party, the city takes possession.
At this point the city is now on the hook for what happens to that property and the city must have a mechanism in place for either re-selling that property to recover the cost of this operation or they bull doze the property to reduce hazardous conditions.
Why this works is that most of these trusted properties are traded like mortgages - in massive bundles. The actual hard copy may be several "owners" back in the line glacially moving along the trail whereas the digital transfer has taken place in a real time pace. Home owners that have been pushed into foreclosure can reply to such a issuance by saying, "Produce the note." This tells that foreclosing agency that they must prove they hold the documents to proceed with the legal process.
The real estate arena has been dealing with this for the last decade and has not really solved the issue, trusts have not begun to deal with this issue at all. By the time the trustees representatives can reply, the property has changed hands. Even if the trustee can win in court all that happens is the city is sued and perhaps fined. That is the cost of doing business and the property is redeveloped in the end.
It is messy and it is not the best solution but these trusts literally cannot act in good faith even if they want to. Trusts are horribly binding documents meant to be indestructible even when all parties want to go away.
My family has a trust where we own a large swath of land in eastern Kanawha County on the order of 353 acres spread over two mountains along I-64. Walmart approached the firm managing the land to purchase and build a superstore. The trust stated that every trustee had to be 18 years of age and agree in a personal signature to end the trust. This was set up by a great grandfather that wanted that land to never be taken out of the family possession even if the family desperately wanted it divested. As the families has children all of the time, and every family is recognized as a trustee, that trust can never be broken.
The many properties in Charleston are bound in shortsighted trusts such as my families. The only way out of them is for a local government to hammer them into pieces through a scenario such as I have suggested. But, this sort of actions takes balls of steel and presently Charleston has a Mayor on his goodbye tour and who did not do much his entire time there. We have Councilors that barely know their own Ward and nothing of the issues or benefits of their peers. NO ONE is in charge in Charleston and worse, no one wants to be so long as they get their paycheck and benefits.
Work is heavily progressing on "supposed" Sheetz in Cross Lanes. They have actually completed a lot in a short amount of time. At the rate they are going, I'd expect a late fall opening similar to the Spring Hill Sheetz.
Also Bojangles in Southridge has walls up.
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