Long-awaited Ozark Building senior housing project ready to move forward

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

The final major piece of developing the former Nevada State Hospital property has fallen into place and Nevada will soon have a 40-unit senior apartment complex in the Ozark Building.

It has taken three years, three contracts, two lawsuits and a petition audit but it is finished, Craig Hubler, city manager, said Monday.

No one can stop this now, he said.

The Missouri Housing Development Commission announced this week that they have agreed to issue $400,045 in tax credits and $450,000 in other MHDC funding for Ash Place, which finalized the sale of the building. As to the audit, Donna Christian, audit manager from the Office of Missouri State Auditor Claire McCaskill said during the Dec. 15 special council meeting that the final audit report will be out sometime in January.

"To have them both resolved within days of each other is a wonderful Christmas present," Hubler said.

The third sales agreement the city council approved this fall hinged on the MHDC awarding tax credits to the project. If the funding was approved the sale was final. If the funding was turned down the sale contract was void and the project was probably dead.

Ash Place is the new name for the project, once known as the Cypress Grove Apartments renovation at the Ozark Building proposed in November 2002 by the Legacy Group, Kansas City.

The Legacy Group, which has prior experience in renovating old buildings, proposed to finance the project with tax credits that could be sold and that money going into the project. Using this type of funding would allow them to complete the project at a reasonable cost.

The proposal to turn the Ozark Building into senior apartments was selected by the Nevada City Council over a proposal by H & M Demolation, Bolivar, to tear the building down and use the rubble from the building to build Joe Kraft Boulevard, Hubler said.

The first time the project requested funding from the MHDC it was granted, however the developer was unable to proceed and had to turn the financing down.

When they resubmitted the project the next year the MHDC staff approved the project and recommended it for funding, however, the lawsuit that Joe Kraft had pending against the city council and the city manager led officials to turn the request down and send the money to a project in St. Louis, Hubler said.

If this lawsuit, which alleged Sunshine Law violations, had been successful, the sale of the building could have been ruled invalid and the city would have needed to look for proposals again. Instead the court ruled in favor of the city and the city was able to pursue converting the building into apartments.

The third time was different.

Hubler said that the developer's title insurance company took a look at a second lawsuit against the city manager and was willing to issue the needed title insurance anyway, which allowed the project move forward.

The original developer has also taken on another partner to help with financing the project.

The new development company, Ash Place Historic Developers, plans to try and get the building placed on the National Register of Historic Places, which would make it eligible for additional state and federal tax credits.

This time, the city will be receiving $250,000 from the developer for the property and Hubler said that part of the money would be used to cover some of the costs the city has already incurred because of the delays in the project.

"We've had to have out-of-town lawyers redraft the agreement several times and there are costs associated with the two lawsuits. We have even had to buy records management software to answer future questions," he said.

However, in the long run this will make the city stronger, he said.

Hubler said that he hopes there will be about $100,000 left over to use to run a fiber optic loop to the airport, the water treatment plant, the north campus area, the Nevada Regional Medical Center and other locations.

Hubler said that all of the projects relating to developing the former state hospital property have been challenging.

The Barone Center, the YMCA, the TeleCenter and Crowder College's renovating the old administration building, have all had their challenges, he said.

In addition to these, Terry Hoeper is completing the housing that was started by Acorn Televillages, he said.