Former funeral home bought
Columbus’ nonprofit development arm paid $475,000 last year for a dilapidated, fire-damaged former funeral home on the Near East Side that still held cremated remains.
The city-funded Columbus Next Generation Development Corp. took over the deal after a private developer backed out.
The city formed Next Generation in 2012 to acquire properties in target areas — particularly the Near East Side and Franklinton — that it could then market to developers.
That’s what the group plans to do with the former McNabb Funeral Home, 818 E. Long St., said Boyce Safford, Next Generation’s executive director. Cleveland-based NRP Group was in contract to buy the
property last year.
“My understanding was NRP did due diligence, looking to get financing and talking with the city,” Safford said. “They felt they weren’t going to get a positive response.”
An NRP spokeswoman said company officials had no comment.
Next Generation assumed NRP’s purchase contract, but it didn’t conduct its own appraisal, Safford said.
“We thought it was fair,” Safford said. “Sometimes, you’ve got to pay a premium to get a key piece of property.”
Without an appraisal, real-estate experts said it’s difficult to determine whether the city paid fair market value for the funeral home property. The only published value available is from the Franklin County auditor: $159,000.
Safford said it was important to obtain the property because the city owns neighboring parcels. Together, the properties total about 2 acres, he said, making it easier to market to developers than two smaller sites.
“This property is worth its weight in gold, diamonds, plutonium, everything,” said Willis Brown, a member of the Near East Area Commission. He points to its location near the refurbished Lincoln Theatre and infrastructure that makes the site ready for development.
Next Generation has purchased 22 properties, and Safford said it has sold one since its inception in late 2012. Then-Mayor Michael B. Coleman pitched the group to the City Council to replace the Columbus Urban Growth Corp., which folded because it had paid too much for too many properties.
“There’s no hidden agenda. There’s no sleight of hand,” Safford said. “We go out to try to aggregate enough pieces of property to be a catalyst in older neighborhoods.”
The group is completely funded by the city. Last year, the city gave it $450,000 for operations and another $2.8 million in capital funds — the most money it has received in any one year. The city has given it about $4.6 million in capital money since 2013.
The funeral home and garage currently on the McNabb property need to be demolished to prepare the site for a developer, Safford said. The building caught fire in 2001, and it’s unsafe to enter it after years of neglect. But some want at least some of the buildings preserved.
“That’s been right now the sticking point,” Safford said. “There’s some folks in the community who think otherwise and we’re trying to work through those differences.”
Brown said the front of the funeral home should not be torn down, and a nearby building that used to be a grocery and apartment already is set up for mixeduse development.
“You don’t eliminate our history just to get a cheap developer to come in here with a clear property,” he said.
The McNabb family had controlled the property since at least 1970, according to property records. Some of the $475,000 the city paid likely went to pay tax liens.
McNabb Funeral Home — owned by Ronald McNabb and Sybill Edwards-McNabb — owed nearly $16,000 in unpaid sales and withholding taxes dating back to 2000, according to court records. It also had a lien worth about $20,000 for a business line of credit.
The McNabbs could not be reached for comment.
Ronald McNabb’s funeral director’s license expired in 2014, according to state records, but the property had not operated as a funeral home for several years before that.
When officials entered, they discovered plastic bags that contained the cremated remains of three men.
Next Generation hired Green Lawn Cemetery to remove the remains and bury them in a mass grave, Safford said. That cost the nonprofit about $2,500.
Two of the bags were marked saying the remains were cremated in 2007; the other was marked from 2003.
When a family member doesn’t claim remains, funeral directors can hold onto them in the hope of someday collecting payment, said Tim Derickson, executive director of the state funeral board. Under state law, McNabb was under no obligation to dispose of the remains before selling the property, he said.