The so-called Cube Building on the former Spencer’s textile property has been eyed for grand plans including the development of a culinary institute and a conference center there — but now appears relegated to the scrap heap instead.
This has come to light with the solicitation of informal proposals for its demolition by Mount Airy officials, for which the submission deadline was May 24.
Despite that, the demise of the once-promising structure isn’t set in concrete at this point, according to Mayor Jon Cawley.
“There has not been a decision to tear it down yet,” Cawley said Friday. “There has been no formal decision.”
“The Cube” is situated to the rear of the Sparger Building fronting Willow Street downtown, with those and other structures part of the sprawling, once-thriving industrial site the city government bought 10 years ago — in May 2014.
This was part of plans to work with private entities to redevelop the property for new uses with the help of historic tax credits that aid this, while preserving the structural integrity of buildings deemed worthy of preservation.
As recently as fall 2020, The Cube was being viewed as a possible site of the culinary institute to train unemployed local residents for chef and other jobs in the restaurant industry.
This fell through after attempts to secure related grant funding failed.
While the Sparger Building is now being refitted for a Marriott hotel, the outlook isn’t promising for its nearby neighbor The Cube.
“It’s in poor condition,” Cawley advised Friday concerning the structure dating to the 1970s.
The Cube has been a question mark in that regard for the past couple of years, with a new finding making its future conclusively dark.
Documents accompanying the solicitation for informal proposals for tear-down services state that “the Cube Building has recently been deemed unsafe and is recommended for demolition.”
The reason this move isn’t a done deal at present surrounds the fact Mount Airy officials are awaiting approval from a federal agency that administers historic tax credits to ensure the demolition won’t adversely affect the awarding of those credits for the hotel project.
“We’ve gotten some preliminary correspondence that is favorable,” the mayor said of that potential outcome.
In addition to the condition of The Cube, Mayor Cawley says there are other factors standing in the way of its salvation, relating to financial and practical considerations.
“We could salvage that building,” he advised. “But it would be expensive.”
And city officials probably wouldn’t like the end result because it would have involved trying “to fit something that doesn’t fit,” Cawley said.
That latter consideration involves the fact that the building is not suited for the last project eyed for The Cube, a conference center and headquarters for the local Tourism Development Authority.
There is reason to believe it might be more cost-effective to construct a building specifically designed for those purposes, Cawley explained.
In an effort to preserve The Cube, there has even been talk of “building around a building,” he related.
City officials want to get The Cube issue resolved as soon as possible to avoid holding up other aspects of the Spencer’s mill redevelopment.
The lowest of the informal demolition proposals received by the end of last week is said to be in the $165,000 range.
Meanwhile the new-construction option for the conference center/Tourism Development Authority headquarters appears feasible due to $13 million in state funding being allocated for the conference center project in 2023.
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