Richmond Village Board approves sale of historic Memorial Hall over protesters’ objections

Richmond’s Village Board of Trustees on Tuesday approved a $230,000 sale of Memorial Hall, a 115-year-old structure on Main Street that has been owned by the village since its construction.

The move upset at least a dozen protesters who showed up at the building Tuesday evening and logged into the virtually held village meeting from its front steps.

They were disappointed as the deal with SH Capital LLC, an entity controlled by a Spring Grove businessman, Sam Everly, was completed within minutes of the meeting starting in a 6-0 vote. Trustee Gina Garbis was absent.

Attempts to reach Everly for comment were not successful.

Memorial Hall was built using money left by Charles DeWitt McConnell, the grandson of William McConnell, the first settler of Richmond, in his will, according to the village website. He dedicated $10,000 for the construction of Memorial Hall, which he said should be used as a village meeting space and for church and school functions.

The sale was approved before public the public comment session was offered.

Scott Drabant, a longtime resident and former public servant for Richmond, was among the protesters who attended the meeting from the steps of Memorial Hall to document the last moments residents of the village were the owners of the historic structure.

Garbis, the absent trustee, is a co-owner of the BratHaus next door to Memorial Hall. Her husband, Jerry Garbis, said the restaurant opposed the sale and wanted it to stay within the public’s hands. The business fears the loss of about 20 public parking spots, which are set to be taken private with the sale, Jerry Garbis said.

“I’m torn,” said Village Clerk Karla Thomas, who has tried to host multiple events in the Memorial Hall space that saw low turnout in recent years. “I feel bad for everybody because I know personally I tried to market it. The village never gave me a big marketing budget.”

She said she could understand why the elected officials for the village were considering a sale.

It had been underused in the years before the COVID-19 pandemic, even as the village has spent about $190,000 in the five years before the pandemic to improve the facility, village officials said.

Still more money is needed to bring the facility up to par. Village President Craig Kunz said that Everly intends to invest “several hundreds of thousands of dollars” into the space, adding outdoor amenities to enhance the property’s patio as well as other upgrades.

A previous offer by John Bilik, another Spring Grove businessman, was taken off the table because of community pushback expressed on social media. Bilik had intended to use the property for live music shows in addition to offering it to be rented for events.

In recent years, the facility also has been used for performing arts purposes.

Wardanian said Everly intends to add and improve an outdoor patio space, while preserving most of the brick structure. There is no formal development proposal that has been submitted to the village yet.

The village has the right of first refusal to buy the property back should the new owner decide he wants to sell it or knock it down, Kunz said. The property holding the structure was appraised at $245,000, according to village documents shared by Village Trustee Toni Wardanian, who was elected the next village president earlier this month.

“First of all, the building is not going away,” Kunz said. “The beautiful historic building is going to be there. It’s going to be renovated by hundreds of thousands of dollars, beyond the cost of the building. It will be there. It will be there for [village residents] to utilize it. It will be there for them to have their receptions or meetings or whatever they want to have.”

Despite the continued presence of the structure on Main Street, the fact it will not be owned by the village residents anymore stung the protesters.

Drabant and others opposed to Richmond selling the property took issue with the rapidity of the deal and felt the village could have taken more time to consider the efforts of a group that wanted to form a nonprofit that would operate the facility on behalf of the village.

The group had garnered pledges of funding worth $70,000 in just weeks of organizing, its members said.

“I don’t understand the rush to sell it,” Drabant said.

But village officials said Richmond has been looking at selling the property for months, and questioned why the protesters voiced their concerns only when offers were on the table instead of attending the public events at it previously and objecting earlier.

“We can’t put the money into it that it needs put into it,” Wardanian said. “Let’s let someone with deeper pockets than the village do it. I can’t imagine taxpayers are going to be upset with it.”