51 Main Street's coming ... but so may be Jacknutz?

I received an impromptu tour of 51 Main Street last week from Dan Ragan, who has been the manager of the rehabilitation project for the building’s owner, Kelly Wagstaff.

Critics of the pace of the rehab can take solace in knowing that the first floor is just about completed, and while this is certainly unofficial, the word is that a solid Broome County business is targeting move-in prior to “black Friday,” which this year falls on November 27. Good news, all around.

Meanwhile, we shouldn’t be surprised to learn that City Councilman Bob Weslar (he of the non-response to most who attempt to contact him by phone or e-mail on topics related to his councilmanic district) apparently weighed in that the Oak and Main Street off-street parking at 51 Main is unacceptable, far after-the-fact.

We shouldn’t be surprised because Weslar seems to make it a habit to meddle where he shouldn’t, as was the case from the get-go, when Wagstaff looked to purchase the place in 2005.

Weslar was bent on pushing Wagstaff to pay the full amount of unpaid taxes for the property (despite the fact that its assessment had been improperly inflated for years), even at the possible expense of losing the sale and allowing the historic building to slide further into decay.

He eventually came to his senses, but not before he tried to impose his opinion on, literally, what types of shrubbery should be used to landscape the corner lot.

Meanwhile, word is that the “historical society” has weighed in with opposition of the 6-foot wrought-iron fencing that’s been purchased to place around the property. According to Ragan, the fence meets city code regulations, but there’s still some sort of bureaucratic flak that needs to be dealt with in order to connect all the dots.

Utter silliness.

For anyone looking on casually, this project was never touted as a full-on restoration. It’s always been referred to as a renovation. Putting it back on the tax rolls. Pumping life into that neighborhood. Or as my kids like to say, even today, “saving that awesome old building.”

Which brings me to another potential development in that same neighborhood. In short, a gentleman named Gene Honnick, of Johnson City, has applied with the city to roll in a 20-foot-long “concession trailer” on the property at 60 Main Street.

This is the site of the former Lost Dog Café, right next to the now-closed Giant food market. He’d like to put it there beginning next May and leave it there until October. He’d sell food out of it, presumably to passersby on the sidewalk, weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

That’s got to be an exaggeration, you say? There’s no way a 20-foot-long “concession trailer” fits into any right-minded planner’s or economic developer’s vision for a stretch included in the “Main Street Program,” which, according to the City of Binghamton Web site, is “an effective and creative approach to helping communities revitalize their downtowns and neighborhood commercial districts.”

It's about historic preservation, we're told.

It’s no exaggeration that the application is in, copied to Binghamton City Councilwoman Terri Rennia, Brian Seachrist (an attorney with the city) and Tom Costello, who recently began his reign as director of code enforcement. The application was submitted to members of the Planning Commission, from Patrick C. Day, planner.

Honnick would like, from the Planning Commission, a special use permit to operate his business called, appropriately, “Jacknutz Barbeque Stand.” Honnick would be selling on a take-out basis with nowhere for people to eat (see: Kennedy Fried Chicken, 2 a.m., any weekend) a “variety of items, including hamburgers, kielbasa and goulash,” according to the application.

Those crappy old guardrails you see surrounding the lot there at the corner of Main and Murray, my, won’t they make fine seating arrangements for the discerning burger-kielbasa-goulash crowd?

One business owner who would be forced, by geography, to look at the trailer and its clientele for six solid months, had this to say, in a letter encouraging the Planning Commission to deny this special use permit.

“We have had several clients question us when we suggest they come down to (our business), since they never know what kind of characters are hanging around. We’ve also had clients (and employees) request an escort to their car or down the street because they don’t feel safe.”

This business owner went on to say that adding a 20-foot trailer would only contribute negatively to the neighborhood, as such a business would be placed solely for the purpose of serving those who would tarnish the image of a block that, with the addition of a new business coming at 51 Main Street, is about to receive a positive injection.

The city needs to take a step back and decide what it wants to be. Will this block, where our high school resides, be allowed to turn a positive corner, and be given half a chance at rejuvenation on the heels of new life at 51 Main?

Or will our city officials take a short-sighted view, snub their collective nose at people like Kelly Wagstaff and her investment time and dollars, and continue to hand things over to more jacknutz?

We’ll see.