(rshsdepot) Whiteville, NC

["Bernie Wagenblast" <brwagenblast_@_home.com>]

City, county railroad negotiate fate of depot

By MARK GILCHRIST
The News Reporter

An ambitious project propelled by a large federal grant that may turn
Whiteville's boarded-up railroad depot into a community center appeared to
be headed for derailment for a while, but the parties are cooperating,
giving hope that the project will get rolling again. Whiteville City
Attorney Carlton Williamson sent a letter to Carolina Southern Railroad this
week outlining concerns the county and the city have, and Jason Pippin, son
of railroad owner Ken Pippin, said he did not see any deal-breakers in the
letter.

"Nothing really sounds unreasonable," Jason Pippin said. "I really do think
we'll be able to come to an agreement on this."

Columbus County signed a lease with the railroad nearly three years ago but
a dispute arose over the terms. The dispute is holding up construction of
the planned community center that will be funded by a $769,000 federal
grant. The grant was given to the county and requires matching funds of
$192,000 from local sources. The Greater Whiteville Chamber of Commerce
would head the restoration effort.

Different interpretations of the lease, which didn't surface until this
summer, caused an impasse, said Kim Neisler, the chamber's deport
restoration project coordinator.

The lease runs for 30 years.

"We're not interested in selling it because it's a part of our network,"
Pippin said. "We're not interested in selling any part of our network."

"Unless something unbelievably crazy were to happen," he said, "I can't see
us saying that we want our building back." The city hasn't asked to lengthen
the term of the lease, but addressed other issues in Williamson's letter.

Rent

The lease required that the company would be paid one dollar per year "plus
payment of all taxes owed by landlord in the City of Whiteville and County
of Columbus." The county maintains that the lease should have included a
list of other properties but this did not happen. The railroad contends
otherwise.

A solution being worked out would have the city, county and the railroad
each pay one-third of those taxes, but Williamson is taking this a step
further. In his letter, he suggested limiting this to the properties the
railroad currently owns in the county, preventing it from, he said, buying
and owning other land or businesses property-tax free in the future.

The rent issue, the biggest impasse in the dispute, was apparently amicably
settled two weeks ago when county commissioners Lynwood Norris, Bill Memory
and County Administrator Billy Joe Farmer met with the Pippins at the
railroad office in Conway, S.C., and found common ground.

Insurance

The current lease reads that the railroad would benefit from all insurance
money should the depot be destroyed. If that happens, the county would be
responsible for repaying the grant funds to the federal government if the
depot were not rebuilt. The city wants an agreement where the building would
be rebuilt should it be destroyed.

"I think we can reword that and work that out," Pippin said. "The way it's
worded now it doesn't help us very much either."

Williamson said that the language in the original lease is not uncommon, but
he's optimistic this can be worked out considering the unusual circumstances
of the depot lease.

Quiet enjoyment

Though the lease does allow the city to use the building as it pleases, it
states that the railroad may also use it. An exhibit that detailed which
parts of the building could be used by either party was not included in the
lease, the county says. Pippin plans to renovate a small office in the
building, he said, but the railroad may also offload passengers and even
large quantities of goods if it needs to.

"We're not going to do anything that will interfere with your guys' use of
the building," Pippin said. "Our goal is to try to grow some business over
there and we just need to have the option to use that area if it becomes
necessary to do that. Our goal is also to make sure that you guys can do
what you need to do with that building."

Lease agreements are rare in the federal program that issued the grant to
the city, according to Debbie Oliver, enhancement project manager for the
N.C. Department of Transportation, which is administering the grant.

"Only a small fraction of our projects are being constructed on property not
of public ownership," Oliver said, "and we've literally done hundreds of
projects around the state with this pot of money." The pot Oliver referred
to came from a federal program called the Intermodal Surface Transportation
Efficiency Act (ISTEA) that is 10 percent of the amount used for federal
highway spending. It was enacted a decade ago to enhance and beautify areas
around transportation routes and includes projects to build sidewalks and
bike paths, among other things, and to restore historic structures.

Amid concerns that the city will lose the building after 30 years, Pippin
insisted that he and his company would let the city benefit from the grant
for as long as he can.

"Our intentions on this are very true," he said, "and I think it's gonna do
the same thing for Whiteville that it did for Mullins."

The city of Mullins, S.C, has a similar project on property owned by
Carolina Southern Railroad. That depot was converted into chamber of
commerce offices and a museum of the tobacco industry and has been
successful, according to Howard Garland, planning director for the city.

"The museum has been the centerpiece of our downtown revitalization
 program," Garland said. "Fifteen thousand people have visited the museum in
the three years since it opened." The Mullins facility is a working depot
with trains passing regularly and the railroad keeps a small office there.
Garland is pleased with the way the Pippins have dealt with the city during
the lease.

"They've worked with us pretty good, even giving us trains for train rides
during festivals," Garland said. Mullins put about $300,000 into restoring
its depot and pays about $300 per month in rent, but only has a 25-year
lease, signed in 1995.

Garland explained how he would feel if the city's lease falls apart when it
expires in 2015 and the city has to hand over the depot with the city's
$300,000 in improvements to the railroad.

"I think we've gotten our money back through the gift shop and the positive
impact of 15,000 people over the past three years," he said.

The original lease for the Whiteville depot will be amended rather than
replaced with a new one, Neisler said, as a new lease might endanger the
grant. Talks are expected to resume next week, after which a consultant will
be hired and an architect will begin work on designs for the project.

"We're happy that we're in Columbus County," Pippin said. "You guys have
been good to us and I think we've been good to you and I'm anxious to keep
working with you."

Photo of Whiteville depot:
http://www.whiteville.com/media/clintondepot2.jpg  President Clinton
speaking at depot (not a great shot of the station)

Photo of Mullins depot:
http://www.co.marion.sc.us/image/traindepot.jpg

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