Town closed session with EDA officials on Afton Inn – precautionary

Neighbors – the new Front Royal Town Hall to right offers a close up view of what has been a boarded up Afton Inn now showing early signs of a pending rebirth. Photos/Roger Bianchini

While a closed session of the Front Royal Town Council lasted about 10 minutes longer, 35 to 25 minutes, than the open portion of Monday night’s council meeting there were no announcements forthcoming from the session – not that, that was any surprise with the topic being a familiar one over the past seven months.

Council and town staff were behind closed doors with Economic Development Authority Interim Executive Director John Anzivino and Dan Whitten, the latter in his role as EDA attorney. The lone topic of the closed session was “consultation with legal counsel” regarding specific “legal mechanisms related to handling potential future debt service related to current and future budget years”.

But if that portion of the closed session discussion was familiar in the wake of town staff discovery last summer of about eight years of debt service overpayments to the EDA totaling about $291,000, the final portion – “with respect to the former Afton Inn building” – was not.

Asked if there was likely to be any announcement following the closed session prior to convening Monday’s meeting, Front Royal Mayor Hollis Tharpe said “no” adding that the meeting was precautionary in nature.

“We don’t want to get stuck with a $2.5-million bill,” Tharpe said.

Scaffolding facilitating initial brick work on the Afton building’s exterior has progressed around three sides. Here the view is from the rear of Town Hall with the Warren County Courthouse across East Main Street.

That is the estimated cost of renovations now under way after well over a year of negotiations with the redevelopment entity now known as 2 East Main Street LLC. That discussion has included the EDA – current owners of the Afton Inn on behalf of the town – and town officials including the appointed Board of Architectural Review (BAR).

According to a Resolution approved by a 4-2 vote of council in November, the Town’s exploration of its EDA-related finances revealed an apparent EDA failure to close on a number of capital improvement loans the Town had believed were in place. That failure negatively impacted debt service projections for several existing or planned Town projects, including construction of the new Town Police headquarters.

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The agreement with 2 East Main Street LLC allows the EDA to retain ownership of the Afton Inn property pending completion of renovations, at which time ownership will be transferred to 2 East Main Street LLC.

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Apparently the Town was seeking assurances behind closed doors Monday that any necessary financing of the Afton Inn project is in place and the Town will not begin receiving any unexpected bills from contractors doing the work there.

The absence of any long faces exiting the Warren County Government Center Caucus Room site of that closed session appeared to indicate – so far, so good.

EDA Interim Executive Director John Anzivino, left, and Town Manager Joe Waltz at the end of Monday’s closed session discussion of financing of redevelopment of the Afton Inn building.

The former Afton Inn, opened in 1868 as The Montview Hotel, is the oldest and perhaps longest derelict commercial building in Front Royal’s Historic Downtown Business District. It was 2005 when the building’s final commercial use as a school book depository shut down.

A huge controversy erupted in 2014 when by a supermajority 5-1 vote council agreed to swap the old Town Hall building for the Afton Inn. The move appeared to be a two-pronged effort to remove Northern Virginia developer Frank Barros from ownership of the Afton Inn after several years of the building laying unused and deteriorating at the head of the Town’s Historic Downtown Business District in exchange for what was considered a too small and obsolete old town hall building; and involve the EDA in marketing the Afton building for redevelopment.

And four-plus years later things seem to be progressing on the Afton side of the street.

Architectural drawing of a restored and renovated Afton building looking northeast from the Royal Avenue-Main Street intersection – Courtesy Graphic/EDA-2 E. Main St. LLC