PANAMA CITY — Property owner George Kingston and the Panama City Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) are hoping a demolition will be a catalyst to downtown improvement.
Kingston owns the buildings, now a quickly diminishing pile of rubble, in the 200 block of East Sixth Street across the street from Grocery Outlet. Construction crews equipped with backhoes started tearing down the buildings late last week and continuing Monday and Tuesday.
“They really needed to go,” Kingston representative Dwight Hicks said. “He’s trying to help beautify downtown.”
The CRA contributed $7,560 of the $15,120 total in a Commercial Interest Grant.
“It has a double use,” CRA program manager Rob Rossner said. “We help them get rid of a blighted building and it makes it more attractive.”
Hicks said the property had received interest from commercial developers but they were dissuaded by the existing buildings. He believes an empty lot will be more conducive to a potential buyer.
The CRA also is performing a similar exercise in Millville. With only two applications for the residential grant program — one for landscaping and another for roofing — Millville program manager Onya Bates used $7,000 to clear five total vacant properties of trees and other vegetation. It opened up two blocks at Sixth Street and Maple Avenue and Sixth Street and Elm Avenue. Originally, $30,000 was budgeted for the grant program for 2015.
“I’m trying to cut down on criminal activity,” Bates said. “I call them trap holes. People back their cars up and do drug deals in those.”
Now that the properties are cleared, Bates is hoping to entice construction. One of the property owners is planning to build houses, Bates said. The owners are Fred Willis, Roy and Linda Matthews and Iola Glover.