GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

[kaelin]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

Mark, dont you think a bail-out for battlefield land would be a grand idea? we the people, would like to see Rippavilla as a whole saved:cry_smile! I have many memories there because of its size, because there is so much of it. that "one day" is here now, we are losing this ground to houses, to more shops, to more stuff. I think our America has enough stuff. Why justify this sale, this loss by saying it creates more jobs. I see houses every day that are peopless, I also see and work with people who are homeless. There are other answers besides selling off battlefield land to create more homes and jobs and revenue for a world that has too much as it is.

[Michael Comer]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

you people really amaze me...I agree that saving the historic property is a necessity and it should be saved as much as possible. However, GM has the right to sell property it was allowed to buy... who was in favor of the intitial sale in the first place? how many jobs were created? when GM moved a plant in and built the Saturn? cut off the hand that feeds you is not good.

My earlier post may have been misconstrued - I didn't mean give the bailout money to Rippavilla, but give the land to Rippavilla.

Anyway, GM does have a right to sell the land. I agree but that doesn't mean I have to agree with their decision and not try to do something about it. I don't see how opposing the sale of the land has anything to do with being against jobs at the Saturn plant. The jobs were made and they have been there ever since. This land, whether it is sold or not, has done nothing to deter people from having jobs. But it does have something to do with preserving something precious in my eyes instead of letting it be destroyed by development that will make the area look like countless other areas throughout the country. Don't you think that all cities and towns look pretty much the same?

Bad management practices and poor business plans are to blame for the predicament the "Big Three" companies are in and selling this land isn't going to solve any of their problems.

By the way, I have 5 vehicles at home - all of them are GM products. And I have two GM products at work. I don't think I'm cutting off anyone's hand.

[Dignann]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

Rippavilla, GM deal faces delays

Developer remains interested, but timetable is pushed back to 2009

By Jill Cecil Wiersma

The Tennessean [Nashville, Tenn.]
December 11, 2008

SPRING HILL — It could be early next year before General Motors finalizes its sale of roughly 500 acres, including Rippavilla Plantation.

An attorney for the buyer, SLF Acquisitions, asked to pull five items related to the matter from the Board of Mayor and Aldermen's upcoming agenda.

"Finally, we realized this is going to take more time," SLF attorney Randy Hardison said at Monday's work session. "We were just trying to live with the timetable handed to us."

Hardison said General Motors officials originally wanted to complete the deal by the end of the year. And while SLF's first round of requests that the city annex the land and rezone it have largely been approved, city leaders want SLF to own the land before they grant final approval.

This put SLF in a quandary, Hardison said, because GM doesn't want the property annexed if SLF isn't going to close the deal. And, Hardison added, SLF doesn't want to end up buying "the world's most expensive farmland" if it should end up not getting to develop the property as it would like.

"The coordination of everything in the right order has been so difficult," he said. "It was probably an overly ambitious goal to think we could be done by the end of the year."

The deal is definitely not off, Hardison assured after the meeting.

Plans now are to come back, possibly as early as January.

"I don't think they or we want to go on for months and months," he said, adding that he envisions closing in the next 30 to 60 days.

Money is not problem Hardison said the weakened economy hasn't changed SLF's interest in the land or its ability to buy it. He said SLF has the cash to invest in the property and won't be deterred by the credit crunch.

"The project may have problems, but that's not one of them," he said.

GM spokeswoman Kate Neary confirmed the company's interest in selling the land to SLF. She said GM will have to redraft an agreement contract for the sale, since the current one expires at the end of the year.

City Attorney Tim Underwood said the delay gives him an opportunity to find out if and how the transaction will affect the $250,000 the city receives each October as an in-lieu-of-tax payment from GM.

Plans for the roughly 400 acres around Rippavilla include residential areas, apartments, a hotel, a theater, restaurants and retail and office space. According to SLF's figures, the development would generate an estimated $1.9 million in adequate facilities taxes for Spring Hill and would annually generate nearly $1.4 million in property taxes and $5.9 million in sales taxes on top of what it would bring in for Maury County.

As a condition of the sale, GM is requiring SLF to donate nearly 100 acres around the former plantation to Rippavilla Inc., the nonprofit entity responsible for the care of the historic site. GM also has agreed to pay the entity $1 million over a 10-year period.

Rippavilla representatives say they are grateful for that commitment, but its executive director and a few board members are now worried about high-density zoning that would allow apartments to be erected on land adjacent to a portion of the preserved property, which includes the 160-year-old family cemetery.

Hardison said SLF is creating its own design standards and buffers between the properties to protect the community aesthetics.

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20081211/COUNTY090101/812110310/1352/RSS0609

Eric

[mightyreb]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

this is just horrid, truly a day indeed.
steve hutton

[Dignann]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

Rippavilla sits amid shadows of growth

Hopes teeter as historic site remains on endangered list

By Kevin Walters and Jill Cecil Wiersma

The Tennessean [Nashville, Tenn.]
March 22, 2009

SPRING HILL — Can a bad economy spell increased preservation of historic land? And is that a good thing? Spring Hill is a local example of how the national recession is affecting growth and preservation.

The nation's largest preservation group last week again named Spring Hill's Civil War battlefield one of the most "endangered" Civil War sites in the nation. It's the fifth consecutive year the land here has been named to the list.

The area encompasses 400 acres around Rippavilla, a former plantation, land where an out-of-state developer wants to build homes, apartments, a theater, restaurants and retail space one day.

SLF Acquisitions' development might generate millions in taxes and hundreds of jobs at a time when the city has faced financial turmoil, brought on by the national economic collapse of the housing market and the financial freefall of General Motors, whose Saturn plant first spurred growth in Spring Hill.

It would also erase what some consider to be a historic treasure.

What's more important right now is debatable.

The Spring Hill battlefield extends from Kedron Road to Main Street. It is where, on Nov. 29, 1864, troops from Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood failed to stop Union forces from retreating to nearby Franklin, where the bloody Battle of Franklin was fought the next day.

For now, development of that land remains on hold, and the Washington, D.C.-based Civil War Preservation Trust wants to keep it that way.

"If anything, it means it's still a danger, or we wouldn't be putting it on the list," said Jim Lighthizer, president of the Civil War group. "In this case, the development pressure continues to stay on the battlefield."

The trust has owned about 110 acres of battlefield land along Kedron Road since the 1990s.

Meanwhile, General Motors owns a little more than 500 acres around the 1850s-era former plantation, and last year the automaker entered into a contract with SLF Acquisitions to develop the project.

SLF Acquisitions is still interested in buying and developing the land, said its attorney, Randy Hardison of Columbia. According to SLF's figures, the development would generate an estimated $1.9 million in adequate facilities taxes for Spring Hill. In addition, it would bring the city nearly $1.4 million in property taxes and $5.9 million in sales taxes each year.

Hardison said SLF has the money to buy the land now, but doesn't mind waiting, either, since an improved economy would make the development more marketable. Initially, plans were to stretch development out over 20 years.

"The longer we can keep the money in our pockets, the better off we will be while we wait for the economy to improve," he said, declining to say how much SLF had offered for the land.

Significance questioned

As a condition of the sale, GM required SLF to donate nearly 100 acres around the former plantation to Rippavilla Inc., the nonprofit entity responsible for its care. GM also agreed to pay the entity $1 million over a 10-year period.

But Pam Perdue, executive director of Rippavilla Plantation, wants an additional 85 acres adjacent to Rippavilla, between the plantation and Saturn Parkway, preserved. She says she can prove the land has historic value.

"There were soldiers camped there," Perdue said. "There was gunfire exchanged there as people were marching northward."

But Hardison contends the land SLF wants to buy is not historically significant.

"This is not really a battlefield," Hardison said. "It was the missed opportunity to be a battlefield that ended up happening in Franklin. The Union troops just tiptoed by them. How much historical significance does that give to this property? What actually occurred, occurred behind where Target is, and that's gone."

But Lighthizer remained firm: "As a general rule, land speculators and agents for land speculators don't necessarily make the best historians."

Despite work to preserve the battlefield, Perdue concedes that most of the GM land will likely be sold. She just wants to see the most important kept for posterity.

"I'm not against development," she said. "I understand that we cannot preserve all the land. I'm OK with them selling 300 acres to the south of us and developing it."

Lighthizer and Dan Brown, executive director for the Tennessee Preservation Trust, contend the economic benefits to land preservation can pay off for a city with historic tourism.

"Tourism creates jobs," Lighthizer said, "and it's a renewable resource in the sense that you don't have to use it up or ever exhaust it."

Brown cited the battle's importance to the scope of the Civil War as proof of the land's importance and why it should be saved for others to appreciate.

"This is not some secondary, unrecognized site," Brown said. "There's plenty of room around Spring Hill (for development). ... We're not saying we're against development. We're just saying we can co-exist."

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20090322/COUNTY090101/903220337/1327

Eric

[PogueMahone]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

My earlier post may have been misconstrued - I didn't mean give the bailout money to Rippavilla, but give the land to Rippavilla.

Anyway, GM does have a right to sell the land. I agree but that doesn't mean I have to agree with their decision and not try to do something about it. I don't see how opposing the sale of the land has anything to do with being against jobs at the Saturn plant. The jobs were made and they have been there ever since. This land, whether it is sold or not, has done nothing to deter people from having jobs. But it does have something to do with preserving something precious in my eyes instead of letting it be destroyed by development that will make the area look like countless other areas throughout the country. Don't you think that all cities and towns look pretty much the same?

Bad management practices and poor business plans are to blame for the predicament the "Big Three" companies are in and selling this land isn't going to solve any of their problems.

By the way, I have 5 vehicles at home - all of them are GM products. And I have two GM products at work. I don't think I'm cutting off anyone's hand.

When the GM plant in Spring Hill was first opened as Saturn, it was a pretty good neighbor to the community. Saturn allowed us to use their land (the Saturn Farm, the land surrounding Rippavilla) to host a couple of huge events in the 1990's and indirectly provided quite a bit of property improvements that were suggested by the event organizers. The Saturn manager had a huge personal CW relic collection in his office, so he was personally interested in the historic nature of the site.

Saturn gave Rippavilla to the county to run as a historic site. The events we hosted on the site gave money to preserve Rippavilla.

The current iteration of the plant is no longer Saturn, it is just another GM plant and the current manager is all business. The plant has been closed recently to re-tool for another model of vehicle and just opened back up in the fall of last year. It was closed for an extended holiday period and many of the workers were getting partial pay. During December and January we saw many locally owned businesses close because the economy was catching up to Spring Hill.

Now, speaking as a bank employee in the Middle Tennessee market who attends credit committee meetings ... these developers need a swift kick in the head. They may come in and develop the site with "outside money" (not local bank funding), but they will not be able to get local builders to come in and start construction for a long time because the local banks are not making spec construction loans. Period. They will be sitting on a developed site (read: ruined historically) with nobody to build the first building. Without construction loans to generate paydowns for the development loan, they will bankrupt the project and the site will go to waste.

I think the city is actually aware of this situation, but is so desperate for money all of a sudden that they may approve the project just to generate fee and tax income. Elections are coming up soon for mayor and aldermen. In a recent newspaper article, it was determined that 60% of candidates did not know that Rippavilla was not in the city limits.

[Charles Heath]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

Joe,

Rob Carter, Billy Birney, Will Tatum, Caleb Horton, and I drove by Rippavilla the other day en route to a fine meal at the Catfish Hotel on down the road en route to some event in Louisiana, and I can't tell you how pleased we were to see no site work had begun. At this point, no one can really say what the final results will be, but few historic sites are uglier than those set up as an island (to appease preservationists) in the middle of an industrial park or residential area. Even with the "carve out" on paper, let's hope this doesn't happen to Rippavilla.

Maybe the place needs a roadside historic marker stating: "Johnny Lloyd was mugged here." Some of you will get this....

[Jon The Beloved]

Re: GM in contract to sell Rippavilla land

Thank you Mr. Mink for keeping us updated. Thank you Mr. Smotherman for setting us straight. Preservation is not a lost cause if informed and active citizens have anything to do with it.