ATHENS (WUGA) — A Northeast Georgia landmark faces demolition after the Athens-Clarke County Mayor and Commission voted to remove the historic Saye Building from the West Downtown Historic District.
The 100-year-old Saye building at the corner of Lumpkin and Hancock has been targeted for demolition since 2018. Athens First United Methodist Church, which owns the Saye, has maintained that the building is not salvageable. The Church wants to demolish it in favor of 12 parking spaces. They say the parking lot is a temporary solution while they prayerfully consider their future plans for the property.
Demolition of the Saye was temporarily halted with the establishment of the West Downtown Historic District in 2020. However, as a result, the Church filed two lawsuits against the city. Last fall, the city signed a mediation agreement with the Church, allowing the demolition and parking lot plan.
At the commission’s regular meeting on April 2, community members came forward, hoping the Mayor and Commission would stand up for the integrity of their historic preservation ordinances and continue to fight the lawsuit. Many argued that moving forward with this settlement would set a dangerous precedent that would put all of Athens’ 19 Historic Districts at risk.
According to John Jefferson from Boulevard, “To carve out the Saye, to destroy it, undermines the future of this historic district and every historic district in Athens. To assert otherwise, to claim that carving out the say is not a precedent, is either disingenuous or it’s naïve. If it looks like a precedent, walks like a precedent, and quacks like a precedent, it is a precedent.”
A group of investors who came forward back in January with a $2 million offer to buy the Saye has recently upped their offer to $3 Million. They claim the Saye building is completely salvageable and that reactivating it and returning it to the tax rolls could generate millions of dollars to the local economy. However, the Church held firm in their position that they are not interested in selling and that it would be most beneficial to the Church and the community to demolish the building.
At Tuesday’s meeting, District 5 Commissioner Dexter Fisher thanked the community for coming out in support of the Saye but stressed that it is not an easy decision. He said, “Our responsibility foremost is to make sure that we protect this city and we hold true to what we need to do to make sure we do the right thing actually by everyone.”
Carol Meyers of District 8 said this issue had been discussed at length over many closed-door executive sessions, “I stand by the fact sharing and legal analysis from those closed sessions that led to my support of that mediation agreement and which were not based on fear, but on what appears to me as reasoned fact-based analysis.”
Commissioner Link of District 2 has been opposed to the mediation settlement from the beginning, saying the Church has offered no compromise, “It wasn’t a mediation… they’re getting exactly what they asked for from the beginning.”
In the end, the Ordinance to modify the boundaries of the West Downtown Historic District passed 7-3, with Link, Tiffany Taylor of District 3 and Ovita Thornton of District 9 opposing.
Tommy Valentine, Executive Director of Historic Athens, was heartbroken by the outcome.
“Not only by the decision but by the fact that we may never know why the decision was made. Open record requests have not revealed whatever smoking gun this commission claims forced this decision. So for a process that was so public and has involved hundreds of people to conclude with a question mark feels heartbreaking. We don’t feel done – we’ve been speaking to an increasing number of people of the church, some of whom have signed our petition that don’t understand their church leadership’s decision, so our next step is to encourage them to ask the church to seriously consider this deal. Tonight is certainly a setback and a heartbreaking one, but the fight goes on.”
No one from the Church spoke at the meeting.
This article comes to Now Habersham in partnership with WUGA News
