Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

I”ve been poking around a bit with some information about Inman Park Properties lately (previous reports), and I noticed an interesting pattern.

The company really doesn”t like to pay its property taxes in East Atlanta. According to DeKalb County online records (which purport to be accurate to within two days on property tax information), Inman Park Properties has only paid its 2006 property tax on six of the 31 parcels it (and LLCs controlled by Inman Park Properties owner Jeff Notrica) owns in the East Atlanta Village.

That”s right - 25 unpaid property tax bills out of 31 total properties totalling $92,116, according to the county site. That”s $92,116 Notrica”s companies owe to DeKalb County and the city of Atlanta in 2006 taxes. And they owe another $6,981 in 2004 and 2005 taxes for the Homeless Hovel property Notrica finally demolished in January.

Hey, that”s $3 short of $100K Notrica has in unpaid taxes just here in our little commercial village.

There are about 100 total parcels in the East Atlanta Village area. Taking out a few government and church properties, there”s about 90 commercial properties on which taxes are levied. Apart from the 25 Inman Park Properties and Notrica parcels on which 2006 taxes are owed, there are only three other properties I found that owe 2006 taxes. Two of those owed a small portion of their total tax bill.

Only Abe Asher - the other bad-reputation property owner in East Atlanta Village - neglected to pay a tax bill completely. He owes taxes on one of his nine parcels (11% of his properties). Notrica owes taxes on 80% of his properties.

For those of you following the tale of Jeff Notrica and Inman Park Properties in East Atlanta, here are some updates for you. The Good:

- Work is rolling along at the two new restaurants set to open in Notrica”s strip of spaces between the Graveyard Tavern and what used to be Good News Cafe on Glenwood Avenue. Word is one of the spaces (described in some circles as a juice bar / vegetarian restaurant / live music space - who knows?) is set to open this month, with the other (The Glenwood - which is positioning itself as something along the lines of Atkins Park) opening sometime after that. The parking lot/alley behind the spaces remains well-maintained and clean.

- A bar catering to lesbians - My Sister”s Room - plans to relocate to the EAV from Decatur. According to the East Atlanta Community Association, the club is moving into the former Good News Cafe space at Glenwood and Gresham avenues. More interesting, still, is that EACA says Inman Park Properties has purchased the Good News space specifically to lease to My Sister”s Room. County records still show that space being owned by the Graveyard Tavern people, but I guess that has changed. At this month”s EACA meeting, it was noted that My Sister”s Room had reservations about leasing from Inman Park Properties because the club became aware of some issues East Atlanta has with Jeff Notrica. To that I say if a company doesn”t let its properties get into this kind of shape, it won”t face these kinds of questions from prospective tenants.

- Some work on the utilities at Inman Park”s Tucker Automotive building on Flat Shoals Avenue has begun. Supposedly this is the future home of yet another new restaurant, but there”s a ton of work that needs to be done before any kind of business is opening there.

The Bad:

- It”s status quo at the B&W Market and East Atlanta Lock & Key. Sure, the ghetto market is gone, but these two spaces are huge eyesores right in the heart of the Village. Notrica could have demolished these spaces when he tore down the Homeless Hovel farther north on Flat Shoals, but he chose not to do so. Supposedly plans are in the works to demolish these buildings, but I”ll believe it when I see it.

- Still lots of trash around the B&W and Notrica”s lots next door - including their lovely rusting oil drums. They”ve done a good job of cleaning up behind the Glenwood space, but not so much is their less visible spots.

The Really Bad and Really Disturbing:

I was told after the EACA meeting that the city has begun code enforcement action against Inman Park Properties in relation to the John B. Gordon School on Metropolitan Avenue. The company bought the school - built in 1925 - from Atlanta Public Schools in the summer of 1997 with the supposed intention of converting it to lofts. And then they left the building there to rot. They”ve updated their “coming soon” sign a couple of times, with the current almost-not-falling-apart version promoting a Spring 2006 launch!

What I was told by an official NPU-W representative is that the city has ordered Inman Park Properties to resolve the issue of boarded up windows at the Gordon School. Apparently outlawing boarded windows is how the city combats abandoned property. And I was also told that Jeff Notrica has a novel idea for resolving the boarded windows - by demolishing the school. I was told that Notrica believes the cost of repairing the windows is too high, so the smart choice is to tear the place down. Somehow I don”t think that was the vision Atlanta Public Schools had when it sold the property 10 years ago. It”s also an interesting position considering the company”s slogan of Preserving The Future By Saving The Past.

Notrica will face a real fight on this one. It”s likely to be a lose-lose proposition, however, because Notrica has demonstrated that he”s more than happy to sit on this property and let it rot. So the options will likely be compel him to put new windows in, in which case the building will probably just continue to rot, or let him tear the place down, in which case the property will probably sit vacant and undeveloped for years to come. I”m sure Notrica will come forward with grand plans for a beautiful new development there, but his history in East Atlanta precedes him.

Jeff Notrica has been perfectly content to let the Gordon School rot for a decade. The Tucker Automotive space has sat vacant and rotting for six years now. The Homeless Hovel sat rotting for seven years before Notrica was finally pressured to tear it down - reportedly because of a boarded window citation. He”s content to let the small building he put up at 567 Flat Shoals five years ago sit vacant to this day. He owns vacant lots on Flat Shoals, Glenwood, May and Haas Avenues that he”s happy to let sit undeveloped, so any promises to build something new on the Gordon School land will ring completely hollow.

East Atlanta will look at any plans by Jeff Notrica will great doubt, because that”s the reputation he”s created for himself in our neighborhood.

The big news in EAV today is that the Homeless Hovel - aka 462 Flat Shoals Avenue - owned by Inman Park Properties has finally been torn down. Just six short years after buying one of the biggest eyesores in East Atlanta - rivaled by the John B. Gordon School, of course (another Inman Park Properties property) - and several months after first promising to tear it down (in the wake of some code violation citations), Jeff Notrica has finally taken the building down. Here”s the excavator finishing up the work today:

So well done. Mr. Notrica. Now just send that big claw machine down to the East Atlanta Lock & Key and B&W markets (now claiming the No. 2 and No. 3 spots in the “worst Inman Park Properties in East Atlanta” category) if you don”t mind.

Of course, it”ll be interesting to see how long the former hovel sits there undeveloped. Notrica owns the lot its on and the lot next to it, so there”s a lot of potential - another six years down the road?

Coupled with the pretty decent clean-up job Inman Park has begun to do on its East Atlanta properties, the action happening to open at least one restaurant in Inman Park”s Glenwood strip and small hints that something might actually happen with the old Tucker Automotive on Flat Shoals, Mr. Notrica is starting to improve his image in East Atlanta. But he has a long way to go.

I don”t know if it”s community pressure or the realization that his recent investments - more than $4.5 million for the Ace Hardware property and the Glenwood strip spaces in the last year - are harmed by neglectful landlords (see mirror, Jeff), but Inman Park Properties is doing better by East Atlanta these days. I hope they continue to do so. I know an old Atlanta school building that could use some love …

As we put a cap on 2006, a quick update on progress Inman Park Properties is making on their holdings in East Atlanta. Jeff Notrica has farmed out clean-up and maintenance to Jason Howard, who bought East Atlanta Ace Hardware earlier this year (Notrica owns the Ace property and apparently also owns part of the Ace business). To Jason”s credit, he”s done considerable work in cleaning up the area behind Notrica”s Glenwood Avenue properties. This was the most obvious example of Inman Park Properties” neglect of their East Atlanta properties and a real blight on the neighborhood.

Inman Park has also closed the B&W convenience store across from Crave on Glenwood. Kudos for that - word on the street is that they bought out the lease, but that”s difficult to confirm. But other than closing the place down to create yet another vacant building in their portfolio, there”s been no obvious action to demolish that building or the East Atlanta Lock & Key space. That needs to happen.

The Tucker Automotive space on Flat Shoals is apparently leased to a guy who plans to open a restaurant there, and last week there was some work - maybe just clean-out - being done at the space there. But nothing I”ve noticed since.

On the Glenwood strip (between Graveyard Tavern and the Good News Cafe space) some action seems to be happening on the two restaurants that are supposed to be opening there. No big, obvious build-outs, but small signs.

But one of Inman Park”s biggest problems in East Atlanta - the boarded up house on Flat Shoals north of the antiques place - remains a graffiti-covered homeless hostel and dumping ground. Notrica is supposed to be demolishing the building - a months-old promise - but so far no permit has been issued and no apparent progress has been made. That”s inexcusable.

And there”s no point in even mentioning the John B. Gordon School. 2007 will mark the ninth year (I believe) that Inman Park Properties has done nothing with the building except let it rot.

So what we”re seeing is Notrica addressing some obvious but basic maintenance issues, and there could be some action on getting businesses open in some of Inman Park”s spaces. But Notrica and his companies have yet to demonstrate that they are serious about addressing the significant issues with their vacant and neglected properties in East Atlanta.

With an update due from Inman Park Properties at tomorrow night”s EACA meeting, the gang (not me, I was out of town) went out to check on the “progress” on Jeff Notrica”s properties Saturday.

Observations from The EAV Buzz crowd:

Well, we did our follow up tour of Inman Park Properties properties for the punch list yesterday. Here”s what we found:

Jason (the owner of ACE Hardware) did hire 4 guys to do some cleanup work behind Graveyard, and I appreciate those efforts tremendously, but that doesn”t negate the fact that the work didn”t even BEGIN until yesterday - the day we did the walkthrough - despite the fact that they”ve had the punchlist for over 3 weeks. I wonder if it would have been done at all if Inman Park Properties and Jason hadn”t been given advance notice that we”d be coming around. And my understanding is that Jason paid for the work himself, not Inman Park Properties. Given all that, I”m reluctant to give them much credit for the clean up.

Zero progress has been made on the yellow Flat Shoals house - the back yard still looks like a landfill, and the house is still wide open to anyone who wants inside. Besides being addressed in the punchlist, they also received a code violation notice from the city at least 6 weeks ago. I don”t know if they”re not planning to touch it until they demo it, but I don”t understand why they can”t at least fully secure the windows and doors and clear the nasty-ass trash out of the back yard in the meantime.

The Gordon School has seen a little improvement. The holes in the fencing have been repaired, some trees have been cleared (though the dead limbs are still laying around in massive piles) and the grass has been mowed. They also painted the window frames on the side facing Brannan Towers. The once-open back door is now closed and secure, but the glass in most of the 2nd story windows is still broken and one of the ground level windows is open and the security cover partially removed.

Everything else is almost exactly as we last saw it - or in some cases worse. There”s even more trash behind B&W - including some crappy carpet remnants - and EAL&K is still littered with makeshift grills, rusting folding chairs, and trash.

The area under the stairs behind the old Pastifico Di Cameli place still looks like a homeless camp, and new items have appeared back there - including an almost new bicycle and a VCR. I can only assume they”re stolen. And the back door of the empty storefront next to the head shop looks like it”s been recently kicked in. The deadbolt and doorknob are completely missing and the holes have been covered with some kind of wire mesh.

On the positive side, something seems to have lit a fire under Abe to make some improvements to his properties - he”s cleaning up and expanding the usable space in the SugarBritches building, and rumor is he”s also working on Madison Theater, though we didn”t see any evidence of that yesterday morning.

All in all, I have to say I”m disappointed in the lack of improvement to the Inman Park Properties properties, but not at all surprised, and I”m hoping that Danny will be at the EACA meeting Tuesday so that we can share our follow-up findings with him.

If you”re late to the party, check out entries here:

Jeff Notrica makes a promise

A tour of Jeff Notrica”s East Atlanta

Word on the street is that Inman Park Properties head guy Jeff Notrica spent a good part of today chatting about East Atlanta issues with those people who matter in the EACA and business community.

Promises were made. Generally speaking, from what I understand Notrica agreed that he has issues with some of his properties in East Atlanta. And apparently he”s agreed to do something about it. High on the list, apparently, is the demolition of the crack shack on Flat Shoals next to the East Atlanta Antiques building:

And the East Atlanta Lock & Key building (also known now as the East Atlanta Loiter & Drink):

Of course, tearing down his vacant buildings (which attract vagrants) requires permits, and permits take time. Given Notrica”s lack of action in East Atlanta to this point (can you say “John B. Gordon School”?), I”ll believe this when I see it. And I”ll let you know when the buildings come down.

In the meantime, I have a suggestion for Inman Park Properties and Jeff Notrica. The entire area behind the buildings you own on Glenwood Avenue between the Graveyard Tavern and the old Good News Cafe space is a trash-strewn, homeless-living pit of filth. You need no permits to hire a couple of garbage trucks to clean that place up. It could be done tomorrow.

So let”s see if that happens soon. I”ll let you know.