Downtown restaurant gets Albany City Commission funding OK

ALBANY — While businessman Glenn Singfield, who with his son, Glenn II, and wife, Tandra, owns and operates the successful Albany Fish Company restaurant at 1921 Dawson Road, scored a financial victory of sorts with the Albany City Commission Tuesday night, fallout from the city’s decision started trickling in Wednesday.

The City Commission voted 6-1 Tuesday to make $623,000 in downtown development funding available to get the 10,000-square-foot-plus property at 112 Pine Ave. “white-box” ready to accommodate a “gathering place/restaurant” the Singfields want to operate downtown. Glenn Singfield had asked for a commitment on the funding so that he could seek further financing to open the restaurant next to the Pretoria Fields craft brewery.

Echoing the argument Ward V Commissioner Bob Langstaff made during discussion of the proposal Tuesday, developer Pace Burt, who is converting the former Albany Heights building at 249 Pine Ave. into the Flatts at 249, said Wednesday he’s concerned that the commission had not only erred by “putting all their eggs in one basket downtown when baby steps were warranted,” but that officials had possibly “set Mr. Singfield up for failure.”

“Look, I don’t know Mr. Singfield, and I’ve heard nothing but good things about him,” Burt said. “I’m certain he is, like me, someone who wants to see downtown Albany succeed. But putting all of the city’s eggs in one basket, so to speak, in making more than $600,000 available on an iffy project is just not good business. What I’m worried about — and what other developers I’ve talked to today are worried about — is that the city is setting itself up for another LaJua’s (a failed restaurant largely funded by the Albany-Dougherty Inner City Authority).

“I know nothing about Mr. Singfield’s finances, but with the three projects that are coming downtown — the Flats, the brewery and the Albany Museum of Art — those are three entities that can weather a (financial) storm if one arises. The restaurant industry is so iffy, I’m wondering if they’re setting this man up to fail by putting so much taxpayer money into a 10,000-square-foot restaurant. Because everyone knows going into this process that it’s going to take years before there is sufficient foot traffic downtown to support businesses.”

Burt said he would have felt more confident if the city had agreed to concessions on a smaller property.

“Everyone who’s done this kind of thing knows it takes baby steps,” the developer said. “I would have had no problem with the city doing vanilla-box preparations and giving free rent on a 3,000-square-foot place. But because they’re setting this huge building up specifically for a restaurant, if things don’t go well, the city’s kind of stuck.”

Langstaff had made similar arguments at the commission meeting, noting that while Burt and Pretoria Fields’ Dr. Tripp Morgan had received larger sums of money to develop their projects — although Burt has agreed to pay back a 20 percent no-interest loan in 10 years on his project — the percentage of the projects was capped at around 20 percent. (The craft brewery’s city-backed funding is actually 22 percent of that project.)

“You’re committing a 50 percent investment in Glenn’s project, and it doesn’t seem right,” Langstaff said. “Don’t get me wrong: I love Glenn, I love his restaurant (the Albany Fish Company) and I love their food. I eat there, and my family eats there, every week. But it’s not fair to the developers who came before him and the ones who’ll come after him to make an investment that would be more than 50 percent of his project cost.

“I’m not going to say what it is publicly, but I’ve seen his business plan, and the break-even number (in sales) is huge. To recoup the investment we’re being asked to make, they would have to pay $7,300 a month in rent, based on the formula we’ve established on the properties we own downtown. I think we could justify selling the the building at below fair market value because of what Glenn would bring to downtown. But I think any investment we make on this project should be similar to what we did on the other projects, around 20 percent.”

Commissioners Jon Howard, B.J. Fletcher, Roger Marietta and Tommie Postell all offered levels of support for approving the funding, although Howard, who represents Ward I, was critical of staff for presenting the proposal without previous discussion.

“I’m going to support this,” Howard said, “but I don’t like this process staff has used. The commission should have been involved in this process all along. The way you have presented it is unprofessional, and I’m infuriated that you would bring this up at the 11th hour expecting us to vote on it.”

Fletcher said she favored making the funding available because the city owns the property and because local downtown development efforts have been lacking in Albany.

“This is the taxpayers’ property, and we owe it to them to fix it up,” the Ward III commissioner said. “But I wanted to point something out. I had some time recently while I was with my mom in the hospital, so I called other cities around here to find out what kinds of investment they were making in their downtowns. Ms. (Downtown Manager Latoya) Cutts, what kind of estimate would you say we’ve put into our downtown since we’ve started?”

Cutts said a general estimate would be around $3 million.

“In Columbus, they’ve invested more than $100 million,” Fletcher said. “In Valdosta, they’ve invested $40 million and are planning another $100 million. Even in little Camilla, they’ve put in $24 million. It’s hard to get people serious about redevelopment if the leaders aren’t serious.”

Marietta said a private conversation convinced him Singfield would make his planned restaurant work downtown.

“First of all, Glenn’s putting his own money into this,” the Ward IV commissioner said. “He’s matching the city dollar for dollar, and he’s going to put in a lot more in sweat equity. Plus, he told me that he’s going to make this work because he doesn’t quit. That convinced me. I’m all-in.”

Postell chastised Langstaff for his “too long presentation,” then went into a rambling soliloquy about moving forward.

“I don’t want to stifle this project,” the Ward VI commissioner said. “Let’s not hold it up.”

After a motion was made and seconded to approve the proposal, Langstaff offered an alternate motion to cap the city’s funding at 20 percent of the project. Postell seconded, but that motion was voted down 5-2. The board then voted 6-1 to make the funding available.