City looks at incentives to help fill empty buildings

WAITSBURG – City officials across the country are faced with the problem of what to do about empty storefronts in their business districts and Waitsburg is no different. A Main Street filled with vacant storefronts is a visual blight and leaves tourists and residents looking elsewhere for something to do or buy. The topic of how to fix the problem was on last week’s city council agenda.

The council had previously requested that City Manager Randy Hinchliffe look into what could be done about the empty buildings lining Waitsburg’s Main Street. Hinchliffe said he has researched imposing some kind of vacant building fee but said that Washington State prohibits any unnecessary tax or fee. However, he said it may be possible to impose a standby fee for utility services.

“Do you want to impose something like that to either encourage the landowner to do something with the building or maybe give them the final nudge to sell the property? If they know they’re going to face a utility bill every month, it might be what they need to encourage them to sell the building, but it’s kind of a slippery slope,” Hinchliffe said.

Council member KC Kuykendall said he would rather see the city help landowners make a successful business model.

“I’d rather see us go in a one-hundred-eighty degree opposite direction and see how we can help businesses make a viable opportunity,” Kuykendall said.

Hinchliffe said part of the issue is that many of the buildings are owned by absentee landowners that have no desire to do anything with the buildings and other landowners have enough money that financial penalties won’t have an impact.

Commercial Club President Joy Smith said that some landlords are using the buildings as “cash cows” by using funds they generate from refinancing the buildings and taking tax write-offs.

“They’re unrealistic about the price that they want to charge potential businesses to come in. They’ve turned down very legitimate offers for their buildings. From a business person’s standpoint, and from Commercial Club’s standpoint, the amount of rent they want to charge is not sustainable for a business. I can’t, in all good conscience, recommend businesses go with that,” Smith said.

Lane Gwinn, owner of the 10 Ton Press building, said that some people bought when Charles Smith purchased buildings in town and that the Whetstone building, in particular, sold for a very high price, setting the standard in people’s minds that buildings are more valuable than what is realistic in the market.

She also said that landowners she is aware of are simply at a standstill rather than trying to profit on the empty buildings.

“The ones that inherited are thinking they will just wait and the ones who have overinvested are kind of in a pickle,” Gwinn said.

She described a program on Whidbey Island where a fee was imposed on empty buildings but the money went into a fund that helped the existing businesses keep Main Street vibrant.

“It wasn’t related to utilities or anything. It was meant to help businesses who were hurt by a business next door being empty. It was meant to be not a stick, but a carrot,” Gwinn said.

City Attorney Jared Hawkins said that, legally, the fee must be connected to a service and can’t be a “revenue raiser.”

Kuykendall suggested holding a workshop with building owners to discuss what types of challenges and hurdles they are facing.

After further discussion, council member Kate Hockersmith asked to meet with Smith and Gwinn to compile a list of ideas to present at the February city council meeting.