At the May 1, Benton Harbor
City Commission meeting. the
chamber was almost full of
regulars and ne face of
people waiting to find out the
outcome of the e of the VI&­
cent Place and other city
properties. The commission
kept the audience in suspence
until near the end of the meet­
mg.
A City Cler Margaret
Bowman read the resolution,
naming Perry Ballard and
Theodore Smith as the bid win­
ners of the Vmcent, you could
see the disappoint.ment on the
face of Winn WoH: the other
bidder on the building.
Ballard and Smith will pay
the City of Be ton Harbor
S200,OOO for the Vincent. A
� deposit of $20,000 was paid to
,. 1 1B£ST. the city and the balance of
J WJnu c.w.... S180,000 will be paid on the
00Ied closing. Their plans for the
CtJI. 8PI!DAL building is to tum the first three
floors into office pace and the
remaining floors into apart­
ments. �
According to Smith, Ballard
P ns to move i bu ine �
Perry Ballard Amertising agen­
cy in the building, The advertis
ing agency is now located 0
Upton Drive, St. Joseph.
Winn Wolf, who bid $275,
for the purchase of the Vincen
was very dissapointed in the out­
come. Wolf's plans were to lease
the rust two floors and the base­
men to Jordan College, with
po ible expansion of the col­
lege on the third floor. The rest
of the floors were to be turned
into office space.
Wolf is the brother of Mayor
William Wolf.
Mayor Pro Tern Charles
Yarbrough, who served on the
committee to sell the Vincent,
appointed several months ago
by Mayor Wolf, said, "We
named ourselves the Vincent
Place Committee," and the "task
was to ell the Vincent Hotel."
"We. went through the
process of advertising and
receiving about six proposals
and we narrowed them down to
tw that we thought was accept­
able and we narrowed that two
. down to one", said r arbrough.
L.��I!I!I!'!II!I!I!I!II!I!'!'!'I!I!'!'!'�������������������������� "This was nota p e ure task,
J�J0�tJtt�f0�ttttJittJft001�ttt�1�fltlt*�ltllilJm��f�mllitt�ftlli� �wasn�aeasy�����
said and "we considered all
aspects of the two proposals and
came up with what we thought
was the best proposal overall for
the City of Benton Harbor.
Commissioners Kerry Shan­
non and Steve Wooden both
agreed that it was a very close
decision and they had to pick
one of the two.
"Ballard and Smith had said
that they would renovate the
DICK
REALTY
GROUP
"Etle1)'lltill We rOuda,
Tums to SOW"
ole building in nine months,
while Wolf only planning on
renovating the first "three
floors", said Wooden.
"One thing that persuaded
me to go along with Ted Smith
and Mr. Ballard was because of
the money that they are plan­
ning 00 putting in it right away,
compared to what Wino Wolf
was talking about doing",
Wooden said, and as of olf,
"one thing that was good, h� was
going to bring the CoQege in".
Christopher Brooks� chair­
man of Downto Develop­
ment Authority Board and
member of the committee to seU
the Vincent Place, said, they
would like to see Jordan College
here, and they had instructed
Oty Manager Steve Manning to
do whatever it takes to locate
space for Jordan College.
Winn Wolf told t e commis­
sion th t he, "fully respects the
decision of the commission" that
they like to have housing in
downtown Benton Harbor.
"You voted for Perry Ballard
and Ted Smith to own the build­
ing, and that's fine, but, I'm
saying in nine months from
today, they better have put
$800,000 to S9OO,ooo invested in
that building", he sa'
"All I'm asking from B Uard
and Smith is they do what they
said they ould do, I'll be wait­
ing, and I'll be glad to take .
over in nine months", he added
Ballard told the reporters
ofter the meeting that the plans
that they have will allow them to
put in very high quality, high
level apartments, starting on the
eighth floor and at the same
tim develop from the 3rd floor
up with a business incubator ..
"Our plan calls for opening
up one floor every three
months", he tated.
The que tion of whether
there be a conflict with the
tenants with children and the
floors where the offices would
be located, was asked of Bal-
lard •
" There would be no con-
flict with the tenants with
children in the building where
the office are located", he said,
.because "there will not be any
children over the age of five and
the building has two elevators.
One we plan to use for the
residential floor and the other
for commercial", he said
One reporter asked, 'why
would he want to move into
Benton Harbor'?' Ballard
answered, "one of the things w
the Enterprize Zone". "There .
a lot of development going on
downtown ", he added.
Diane O'Dwyer, owner of
the Landmark Ho el, 163 Col­
fax, Benton Harbor told
Continu d on P 19
•
'1