Albany eyesore on market again
Icome to you today with a once-ina-lifetime real estate opportunity. The Central Warehouse, the much-discussed and highly visible building just north of downtown Albany, could be yours.
Albany County, citing more than 10 years of unpaid taxes, has put the building up for auction and is already accepting bids.
The county, said spokeswoman Mary Rozak, is essentially looking for viable economic development proposals for a warehouse that has sat vacant and unused for decades.
“We are hoping that there is a person who will be the right fit, who has a plan that will put the building back on the tax rolls,” Rozak said. “We haven’t given up hope.”
News of the auction came as an unpleasant surprise to the current owner, Evan Blum, who said the county had not notified him of its plan. Blum in 2017 bought the building for $1 from Sunmark Federal Credit Union and promised a grand transformation that remains unrealized.
“It’s a shocker,” Blum said of the auction. “They don’t have the title to it.”
That’s true. But David Reilly, the
county’s commissioner of management and budget, in a phone conversation Wednesday outlined a process by which the county could transfer ownership of the building while avoiding the legal liabilities that might come with public ownership. The idea, he said, is to protect taxpayers.
Blum owes $514,321 in unpaid taxes, Reilly and Rozak said, a tab that includes bills from the years before his ownership. That bill, along with the need for an economic boost after the pandemic, convinced the county that this was the time to seek progress at the warehouse, they said.
The warehouse is an 11-story, 500,000-squarefoot building on Montgomery Street built in the 1920s as a cold-storage facility. The solidity of the structure makes it expensive to demolish, and for years it has existed as a decaying eyesore on a monumental scale. It is, to be sure, a difficult and complicated piece of real estate.
Blum, the owner of a downstate architectural salvage business, has been reluctant to detail his plans for the building out of fears, he told me Wednesday, that somebody would steal his idea. But in general, he said, his idea involved using the warehouse as gallery space for 500 to 600 artists who struggle to get their work shown.
The exterior of the building, essentially four massive blank canvasses, would have been used for what Blum described as a continually changing mural show. Together, the plans would make the warehouse a unique and noteworthy attraction, he said.
Blum didn’t hide his anger at local officials. He suggested the county must already have a buyer lined up and said he would consider legal action if the auction moves forward.
“It’s unfortunate that they say they want to work with you but stab you in the back at the same time,” Blum said. “I’m not a failure. I’m the savior here. They try to make you look like the bad guy, but I’m not the bad guy.”
Rozak said the county would not automatically accept the offer of the highest bidder. Instead, the county is looking for viable proposals from owners with the financial ability to realize them. The new owner would not be responsible for the back taxes, Rozak and Reilly said.
But if Blum wants to continue owning the building, they said, he needs to pay what is owed. Otherwise, the auction will proceed.
When asked about his lack of progress at remaking the building, Blum pointed to personal issues and the global pandemic. The Central Warehouse, he added, is a challenge, but one he was ready to accept.
“I came to Albany wanting to do something great,” Blum said, adding that if the county sells the building, the new owner will be “some slob who doesn’t do much for the city. This isn’t about money for me.”
Blum is just the latest in a string of owners who have failed to redevelop the Central Warehouse. That consistent lack of progress and the ugliness of the building have led to calls for its publicly financed demolition.
Rozak said that is not being considered by the county, and the city also seems uninterested in the idea.
“Mayor Sheehan is supportive of the county’s decision to solicit bids for the Central Warehouse and is hopeful the private sector will step up and make a compelling proposal for the site,” said City Hall spokesman David Galin.
Despite its faults, the building has assets. The view of the river and city from the upper floors are said to be dramatic. The building is also adjacent to the city’s planned elevated Skyway, a highway ramp being converted to a pedestrian walkway that is expected to open by the end of the year.
But potential buyers should be aware of some ... let’s call them quirks. Blum, for example, mentioned a group with an unusual interest in the warehouse.
“It’s a cult that does satanic rituals in the building,” he said. “They have resources and wherewithal and they break into it.”
Bids are due June 10.
“I came to Albany wanting to do something great ... This isn’t about money for me.” Evan Blum, building owner