Owners want to lease space to restaurant

The new owners of the building that housed the LaPiazza restaurant on Troy’s Public Square for 25 years are looking for a restaurant to call the firstfloor space home and plan to use the upper floors for living space, possibly their own in years to come.

Bob Widule, president of The RLW Co. of San Antonio, said he and his wife, Claire, bought the building after discovering it and Troy while looking for a place to live in anticipation of Claire, who is in the Air Force, being stationed at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

“We fell in love with Troy,” Widule said.

“We noticed the building was for sale and I ran some numbers. We were hoping to live in a portion and lease the rest, but we recently received word we are going to be stationed at Scott near St. Louis,” he said.

The couple through 2 N. Market St. LLC bought the buildings at 2 and 6 N. Market St. in early February from Michael Anticoli Properties for $595,000.

There are no extreme plans for the building. The goal includes getting the restaurant and the apartment above it leased.

“It’s a gorgeous apartment right on the square and the restaurant space is just waiting for an operator to make it their own,” Widule said. He is working with Jordan Romberger of Our Corporate Real Estate Department on leasing the properties.

Once the restaurant and apartment above are complete, attention will turn to renovating a third-floor apartment at 6 N. Market St. followed by the thirdfloor space in 2 N. Market St.

“It’s an old Odd Fellows hall, has fantastic bones and dramatic windows and ceiling height. We plan to make that space our home when we come through Wright-Pat someday. We’d just lease the space until then,” Widule said of the third floor space in 2 N. Market St.

City and downtown leaders were pleased to see the LaPiazza building sell, two years after the restaurant closed.

The building is an anchor downtown, said Tim Davis, city development director. “We look forward to the seeing the property placed back into productive use to complement the attraction that downtown offers,” Davis said.

The Troy Main Street downtown advocacy organization was excited the building sold and is looking forward to its future use, said Andrea Keller, Main Street’s executive director.

“The building is located in a prominent part of our downtown and we look forward to that space being used again. We are always happy to have another space in downtown Troy occupied as a low vacancy rate is crucial to the growth of downtown Troy and our community. We look forward to what is to come with the new owner,” Keller said.

Widule said he was impressed by “the vision that is in place” in Troy.

“Throughout the contract period I got to know several people in the area and it was striking how positive everyone was. From our observation, it really is a community focused on working together to make the city truly a great place to live. We are excited about our opportunity to join the effort,” he said.

Contact this contributing writer at nancykburr@aol. com.