A gas station on Argonne Road is planning to expand and Our Father’s House, a longtime thrift store and source of assistance for low-income families, will relocate.
Representatives of Freedom Oil today took the first step in expanding its business at 425 Argonne Road, Warsaw, including property occupied by Our Father’s House.
The Warsaw Economic Development Commission approved the business’ petition with a favorable recommendation to the city council designating the real estate at 401 and 425 Argonne Road as an economic development target area.
City Planner Jeremy Skinner said, “That economic development target area allows the city council to give tax abatements for commercial and real estate improvements.”
After the commission makes a recommendation to the council, Freedom Oil can approach the council and present a resolution to the council for a tax abatement request. If the council approves the resolution, Freedom Oil would then be eligible for the tax abatement.
Greg Cobb, Freedom Oil managing member, said, “I have options to purchase Our Father’s House, so the plans would be to demo Our Father’s House and our current store, and then lay out a store very similar to what we built in Leesburg.”
In a telephone interview this morning after the meeting, Our Father’s House Director Roz Morgan said made it clear the organization will continue, but at a different location.
“We are definitely not getting out of it. Our community definitely needs it,” Morgan said.
She said the thrift store will be moved to the Lakeview Shopping Center on Winona Avenue and will have 6,000 square feet of retail space. Her husband’s health is precarious, she acknowledged, and that may dictate things down the road, but she has a one-year lease for the new location.
“We’re looking for another location for our catering arm,” she said.
Morgan said Freedom Oil was purchasing the land from Our Father’s House.
She will remain the director of Our Father’s House. “As long as she operates, it looks like I’ll be at the helm,” she said.
The plan is to start moving next week, then prepare the building for a “huge auction,” she said.
Meanwhile, the gas station will also request to vacate the alley between the two properties so the properties can be tied together, Cobb said at this morning’s meeting.
Currently, he said, Our Father’s House is tax exempt.
“We think that once we do that, we can improve the whole site, the whole area. Revitalize the area,” Cobb said.
He estimated that Freedom Oil’s taxes for its Argonne Road property are about $2,000. After the abatement, he said they would probably shoot up to about $8,000.
“At least, that’s what they are in Leesburg,” Cobb said. “At the end of the day, I think it will be a good deal for the city. One to clean it up, and two to have more tax revenue.”
The expansion will be very similar to Leesburg and have more green area.
Commission President Tom Allen said the current gas station is “tight on the street,” and Cobb agreed.
Skinner said Argonne Road was a target area for the city’s Stellar application in 2016.
“We sat down about a year ago with Greg and some of the other property owners and discussed some of the improvements that we wanted to make on Argonne as part of that Stellar submission. Greg came to us a couple of months ago and said, ‘Hey, I’m thinking about doing this.’ And obviously we’re big supporters of this. The development that he’s going to do will meet some of the criteria that we set out to do as far as our Stellar submission along that roadway,” Skinner said.
Those criteria include green space, sidewalks and parking on the gas station property.
Mayor Joe Thallemer told the Commission, “This makes perfect sense to us because we’re looking at a solution on the Arnolt property. We’ve been meeting with the receiver and we’ve been trying to come up with a solution with that property as well, which hopefully would be a use conducive to redevelopment in that area.”
Skinner said like all redevelopment areas, there has to be a trigger, and the city feels like Freedom Oil’s investment in the area will be the trigger for Argonne Road for future investment.
With the proposed roundabout planned at Argonne Road and Winona Avenue, Cobb said that also will improve traffic flow.
After the commission unanimously approved a favorable recommendation to the city council on Freedom Oil’s petition, Cobb said he hopes to open the new, expanded convenience store by October.
Thallemer told the board, “I just want to publicly thank you all for taking this step today. Our Stellar project and our Stellar vision, we spent quite a bit of time looking at Argonne Road along with our Winona Lake partner and that connectivity is critical. And this is a big link, this is a big step with the improvement of Market Street and the continued improvement of Market Street in the next year or so. It’s going to be a really big physical link, giving Winona that gateway that we wanted so desperately. We appreciate Greg and his company realizing that.”
