ADRIAN — At its Aug. 17 meeting, the Adrian City Commission gave a boost to efforts to rehabilitate the building at 122 S. Main St. Commissioners unanimously approved an Obsolete Property Rehabilitation Exemption certificate, which will exempt the owner from paying additional property taxes related to improvements on the site for the next eight years.

During a public hearing on the exemption certificate, Adrian resident Melissa Jodis spoke in favor of the proposal. She said the building is functionally obsolete, but that downtown will benefit if the owner’s plans for a ground-floor restaurant and four upper-story apartments are successful. 

“We aren’t losing any existing tax revenue,” she said. “Instead, we are simply deferring the revenue on the improvements. This provides the developer the financial viability they need to take on the massive, unpredictable risks of renovating a historic building. Without incentives like this, these old buildings often sit vacant until they deteriorate past the point of saving, and then the community loses them forever.”

In other city news:

The city commission approved an agreement with Madison Township under which township staff will provide support for building and construction code enforcement if needed, in response to the city currently being shortstaffed in that area. Acting city administrator Will Sadler called the agreement “a precautionary measure so we have somebody available if we need it.” He said city staff members have been doing a good job keeping up with the work despite job vacancies in City Hall, but it will be helpful to be able to turn to Madison Township for support on “an interim, as-needed basis.”

• A debate from earlier this summer over the purchase of a lawnmower for the parks and recreation department has been resolved. After a bidding process through the government procurement service Sourcewell resulted in a recommendation to purchase from an out-of-town dealer, commissioner Chip Moore went to a Toro dealer in the city and got a lower bid. At the Aug. 17 meeting, Sadler told commissioners that the bid turned out to be for the wrong mower, and at that point, to preserve the integrity of the bidding process, city staff opted to put the purchase out for bids again. Although the local dealer, Gallant & Son, was not the lowest bidder, their bid of $14,464 was only $465 more than the dealer from Dexter that submitted the lowest quote. The city has a local preference policy that allows the city to choose a local company that isn’t the lowest bidder, as long as their bid is reasonably close to the lowest one. (There is a sliding scale that ranges from 1.5% for projects of $100,000 or more to 4.5% for projects between $10,000 and $19,999.)

Additional stories from the Aug. 17 meeting:

• Interim city administrator interviews set for Thursday
• Utilities director gives update on water treatment options
• City hires firm to develop parks and recreation plan

Click below to watch the meeting: