First Federal backs out of Granville parking lot plan, decides to sell homes near office

First Federal Savings and Loan has abruptly given up plans for a parking lot in Granville and is selling two houses it owns on East College Street.

It bought one of the houses 20 years ago and the structure fell into disrepair as the company wrestled with neighbors who did not want a parking lot on their block. And when the most vocal neighbor died last year, the bank bought her house, too.

Now, both houses are for sale. First Federal is selling the dilapidated house at 209 E. College by sealed bid. And it hired a real estate agent to sell the house next door, which was owned by Gloria Hoover until she died at age 96 in February 2022.

"It was a business decision," said Sally Wallace Heckman, First Federal president and chief executive officer. "The costs were just way more than we expected."

She said that with inflation the cost of labor and resources didn’t make sense financially. Heckman also acknowledged community concerns about the parking lot plan.

"We really heard the community when they said they didn’t want a parking lot there," Heckman said.

Neighbors and community leaders were not happy about the lack of maintenance at the house the bank sought to demolish for parking behind its office at 126 N. Prospect.

As reported in September, neighbors said the bank was practicing "demolition by neglect" by not maintaining the property, which is just east of Prospect Street, behind the brick building occupied by The Lot Beer Co. and formerly occupied by Three Tigers Brewing Co.

"Staff concludes the applicant allowed the structure to fall into its current state of disrepair," stated a planning department document. The village planning staff described the structure as being "in a state of disrepair that one might refer to as 'dilapidation.'"

Resident Keith Myers, who lives a few doors east on College Street, told the council during a meeting last year that the house at 209 E. College St. never should have been allowed to decay so badly.

It remains a concern for village officials, too.

"I look at (demolition by neglect) unfavorably," said Village Manager Herb Koehler, "both as a resident and as a member of staff."

He said that village officials are talking about how to avoid demolition by neglect in the future.

"We don’t have anything in our current code that disallows that," said Koehler, "but it has been at the forefront of our discussion."

In September, it appeared that the bank, neighbors and the village had reached a compromise that would allow the bank to demolish the house at 209 E. College. Neighbors said they would drop their protest of a parking lot if the bank sold Gloria Hoover’s former home to someone who would maintain it as a residence and the bank agreed to specific landscaping to shield the parking lot from the street view.

First Federal worked with Myers, a landscape architect, to develop a plan for landscaping around the proposed parking lot. And the Village Council voted in September to give conditional approval for demolition of the house at 209 E. College St.

"We’re going to make it beautiful so that, hopefully, you won’t know there is a parking lot there," John Compton, Senior Vice President at First Federal, said at the time.

The first sign that something had changed came in December when a village hearing scheduled for Jan. 4 on a zoning change – requested by First Federal for that property – was canceled without explanation.

While First Federal never used the house at 209 E. College, bank employees used the driveway and parked in a lot behind the house. The driveway and small parking area are included in the parcel being sold. If the next owner seeks to demolish the house, the owner will be required to follow the same process the bank went through to seek demolition, said Village Planner Darryll Wolnik.

And the neighbors have indicated they will have something to say about any proposal for demolition.

The First Federal listing for 209 E. College St. describes it as a multi-family home of 1,591 square feet built in 1912 on a 0.12-acre lot with rear parking. It says the house has five bedrooms and three full bathrooms. The Licking County Auditor’s website says the bank paid $180,000 for the property in 2003, and the auditor lists its current value for tax purposes at $238,100.

The property is being sold "as-is" and the listing price is $250,000. Sealed bids are due by Feb. 17 to Danielle Nichols at the First Federal Granville office.

Lauren Pearson, an agent with Village Partners RE/Max Consultant Group, said Hoover’s former house, which was built in 1910 at 213 E. College St., is in contract to be sold.

Jack Wolf writes for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism Program, which is funded in part by the Mellon Foundation.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: First Federal backs out of Granville parking lot plan