We Are Improving!

We hope that you'll find our new look appealing and the site easier to navigate than before. Please pardon any 404's that you may see, we're trying to tidy those up!  Should you find yourself on a 404 page please use the search feature in the navigation bar.  

User Rating: 2 / 5

Star ActiveStar ActiveStar InactiveStar InactiveStar Inactive
 

The city today received no sealed bids on the Roanoke Rapids Theatre after rejecting one last month because of a tax reduction stipulation.

This marks the second time no bids were received on the venue after a September 12 deadline passed with no offers.

City Manager Kelly Traynham said the next step will be to discuss options with the city council. The next regularly scheduled council meeting is December 20 but there are currently no agenda items for that date. “We could consider a special meeting sooner than that.”

She said some of the other options could be looking at a marketing and real estate firm that could spark some national attention. There is also the possibility of using an online auction which did produce some results when it was used several years ago but none of the bids were accepted at the time.

“I thought we were going to get a bid for the theater until she (Traynham) told me we weren’t,” said Councilman Wayne Smith, who has pushed for the sale of the theater.

Smith said he was currently at a loss about what the next steps to get the venue sold should be. “I thought the bid was going to come in so I didn’t give it any more thought.”

Traynham said, “There are other ways but we have to go through a competitive process so we can’t just negotiate terms like outside a process but there’s a potential economic development route. That one is kind of a tougher route to go through with the studies that would be required.”

If the city considered a lease agreement that would still have to go through a procedural process.

She also said one of the things that the council could do is to reduce the minimum bid.

Smith added that a lease agreement could be an option with a certain amount of money put down and then have an option to buy at the end of so many years.

“If we could get some different proposals we’ll reconvene,” Traynham said.

Councilwoman Sandra Bryant said she would be interested in discussing other options “and making it more than just a local advertisement.”

Traynham said while the latest sealed bid process produced no proposals, “It’s not been that any of this has been done without any effort because we have shown the property. On a few occasions we have had some interested persons. It’s not like buying a house or car. It’s certainly a unique piece of property.”

The city manager said she still has hope that the area surrounding the theater can be a thriving place. “Shovel-ready property is all around it. It’s a beautiful building — a well-kept facility — and we will do our best to continue to explore other options.”

Traynham said what came up last month when the city ultimately rejected the bid of Dewey and Leslie Brown was that the city can’t just openly waive property taxes for anyone. “It would have to be done under an economic development agreement. But we cannot just agree to do that without certain mechanisms in place.”

Traynham said even if the city was to ask the county it couldn’t be legally done without following the guidelines on certain economic development processes. “Some of the economic development processes would be through job creation or expansion of a business or through increased sales tax revenues. You would have to have a schedule set up at the very beginning of the contract period so that if expectations weren’t met then the taxes would have to be paid.”