SOUTHPORT — An ongoing discussion about the use of a historic courthouse came to a resolution by Southport officials this week, to the chagrin of some residents.
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The board of aldermen hosted a special meeting Tuesday regarding the 170-year-old Brunswick County Courthouse — a National Historic Landmark — that’s been at the forefront of discussion for years but particularly in recent months. Aldermen voted 4-2 to keep it centered on governmental needs.
The move comes despite an arts nonprofit, Center for the Arts of Southport, asking for a public-private partnership with city officials to make the courthouse a flex space, potentially combining a performance hall and arts venue with council chambers.
The partnership was first presented as an idea by Up Your Arts Southport, with former board of aldermen signing a memorandum of understanding a little less than a decade ago to explore a partnership.
Up Your Arts eventually spawned CAS’s founding to oversee the goal. Aldermen have also come and gone on the board since.
“We were blindsided and disappointed in not being able to converse together,” CAS board member Brad Sevaldson said about the vote Thursday, at Southport’s regular aldermen meeting.
The board of aldermen voted unanimously in the summer to pencil in a meeting with the arts group. But it never happened.
“I mean, we haven’t even sat down when we repeatedly voted to meet with the nonprofit,” Alderman Karen Mosteller told her colleagues during Tuesday’s special meeting, saying it sent mixed-messages. “We don’t even really know what their conversation is.”
CAS paid for preliminary designs with Lisle Architecture. It also was willing to oversee renovation costs by applying for federal and state grants, private donors and public fundraising to mitigate burdening taxpayers in the building’s $4.5 million renovation and maintain its upkeep with revenue from performances and rentals.
Earlier this summer, the city financed some of the building’s cleanup, due to asbestos, mold and lead: $29,500 has been paid to HICAPS consultants, $151,110 to Rhino Demolition and Environmental, and $78,200 to Environmental Air Monitoring. The city is also looking ahead to January 2025, when more money will be spent —approximately $8,000 a month, Mayor Rich Alt noted — for the building’s HVAC needs.
CAS representative Mark Bachara went before the board last month to hear its wants and needs, which included sending Bachara back to CAS to find out if they could work around the aldermen’s priorities. This included making the courthouse accessible to aldermen and other city board meetings on Monday at 8 a.m. through Friday at 1 p.m.
Port City Daily reached out to Bachara Friday to ask if the CAS board was prepared to accept the proposed conditions among other questions about this week’s vote, but an answer wasn’t received by press. However, he told the State Port Pilot, even with the aldermen’s stipulations, it would be “financially feasible.”
Mosteller and Aldermen Robert Carroll dissented on Lowe Davis’ motion to retain the courthouse for government needs Tuesday.
City staff presented Tuesday the capacity needs for city administration, boards — aldermen, planning, board of adjustment — and the police department. They also included the financial implications. City Engineer Tom Zilinek, who said renovations on the historic courthouse would take up to two-and-a-half years at least, put forth four options:
- Option 1: Renovate old city hall for a board meeting room and police department for $4.2 million, to be financed with $2 million in interest, costing the town $6.2 million; it would have a $0.020 ad valorem tax impact
- Option 2: Renovate old city hall for administrative offices for $3.5 million and new city hall for the police department for $1.25 million, to be financed with $2.28 million, costing the town $7 million; it would have a $0.22 ad valorem tax impact
- Option 3: Renovate old city hall for $3.5 million and Indian Trial Meeting Hall at $100,000 for administrative offices and new city hall for the police department $1.25 million, to be financed with $2.3 million in interest, costing the town $7.1 million; it would have a $0.22 ad valorem tax impact
- Option 4: Does not include any renovation of city halls but construction of a new police department, costing $1.2 million for land and $7.2 million for the structure, to be financed with $4 million interest; it would have a $0.39 ad valorem tax impact
A fifth option was brought up by Alderman Rebecca Kelley, who suggested a campus build-out that houses city departments, as seen in Oak Island, Brunswick County and New Hanover County. Though no costs were presented, she estimated it could be at least $16 million to $20 million, just judging by staff numbers.
“That gets very expensive very quickly,” she said.
The police department is currently operating out of 2,500 square feet in the Tidewater Plaza shopping center for $6,000 a month. It once was located in the historic courthouse for two years before it shuttered due to needed renovations in 2016. The courthouse’s 8,500 square feet has been empty since.
A 2023 Space Needs Study for City Hall and Police Department — done by Moseley Architects and paid for by the city for $50,000 — showed more space would be required in the long-term. The study suggested the police station would mandate almost 7,200 square feet to operate, which could escalate to 7,600 square feet by 2028 and 8,400 by 2033.
Mosteller said combining the council chambers and police department didn’t add up if the aldermen and other city boards utilized 3,500 square feet upstairs in the historic courthouse. That would only leave 5,000 square feet.
Looking toward the future, Mosteller also feared the police department would outgrow its facilities in the next 10 years, particularly when considering Southport’s impending population swell.
“How would Indigo phase two — [now called Waterway] — impact our resources and what would we need?” Mosteller asked as an example. “In the end, that will bring over 2,000 new residents to our city. … And that’s not even taking into account the unfettered growth in Brunswick County around us that’s going to come to us. In order for us to maintain and continue the level of service that we give to our citizens, it’s going to take more resources because of the pressure from Brunswick County alone.”
Police Chief Todd Coring told the aldermen he is in favor of being back in the courthouse’s first floor and utilizing second-floor council chambers, when meetings aren’t happening, for police training. This would put city’s law enforcement back in the heart of downtown, the busiest corridor, and accessible to pedestrians as needed.
Currently, Coring said the department is strapped with its operational needs.
“We recently had to conduct a couple of interviews on a crime [in] a small intake room, but we had to move a couple of people around just to have some quiet so they could do their interview,” he said. “We’ve had some unfortunate incidents; we had to impound vehicles due to a felony hit and run. We need space to bring that evidence in and we need vehicle space and storage.”
Even with city and departmental growth, Coring said the courthouse would work and called it “the best location.” Roughly four or five command staff are normally occupying the building while the rest of officers are on patrol, he verified.
The chief once served on the board of aldermen for eight years before the courthouse was vacated and the police department temporarily relocated to Indian Trail Hall.
“The direction has always been to put the police department back in that building for city use,” Coring said.
Aldermen didn’t take a vote on any of the four options, including how to handle the police department, but Davis’ motion was essentially to ensure the city’s needs were met first and foremost. It was something Alderman Marc Spencer thought was important.
“I cannot understand how we don’t take advantage of the property we have,” he said. “It’s like me giving up my house and going and renting somewhere else. It doesn’t make sense.”
City hall was once in the historic courthouse from the late 1970s through 2014 but has been mobile among various spaces in recent years, switching between the Southport Community Building and Indian Trail Meeting Hall. The city’s goal is to find a permanent home again.
Carroll took issue with the motion, saying unless he was clear on the city’s path forward in its use of the building, he didn’t feel confident to vote in its favor. He also put forth a different approach, suggesting if aldermen didn’t want to work with the arts organization that they craft a different motion saying they wouldn’t enter a memorandum of understanding with any outside groups.
“We’re going to arbitrarily not meet with citizens that have been working for a year to give us information?” Mosteller asked later in the meeting. “I’m just telling y’all, this ain’t a good look.”
Davis clarified her motion would not push out the option for the nonprofit to rent space from the city, should it want to host performances in the renovated courthouse in the future.
Carroll asked Davis what she hoped the motion would attain.
“It allows the engineer and the staff to start working on how we put the building together,” she said.
“Then let’s make that motion,” Carroll responded. “Let’s instruct city staff…”
He was cut off by the mayor.
“Robert, we have this motion on the floor,” Alt said. “We have to go through it — not because I’m trying to be a ruler here. It’s because it’s a parliamentary thing we have to do.”
Earlier during the staff presentation, Alt weighed the fiscal responsibility aldermen has for its citizens. He thought it made more sense financially to utilize the historic courthouse for multiple departments instead of financing a new police station on top of the board’s space needs.
Mosteller brought up the city spending money on studies now getting overlooked and thought it was wasteful not to listen to professionals who interviewed Southport staff and departmental heads — including police — to assess long-term needs.
“These experts were thorough,” she said.
Alt leaned on his previous experience serving on boards and overseeing capital projects. He said he wasn’t “hung up on the consultant’s numbers,” noting they’re often looking at “grand schemes” that eventually change.
Davis was clear she wasn’t going to question the chief’s first-hand account, which for her carried more weight.
“Are you saying that the chief is wrong?” she asked Mosteller.
“I’m saying I love that chief,” Mosteller replied, calling him a personal friend. “I have a fiduciary relationship to the whole citizenry. … I’m not going to answer that question because I think that was really, wildly inappropriate.”
“But you keep saying he’s wrong,” Davis added.
Alt interjected for everyone to “take a deep breath.”
Eventually, the motion passed but not without Mosteller calling out the board for taking a vote on an item without public comment. She also pushed back against a memo before them.
“We did not allow this note that says ‘confidential’ from the city managers to be out in the public so that they knew what we were discussing today,” she said, calling it “problematic.”
Two days later at the regular aldermen meeting, Kay Ross, one of 17 Center for Arts of Southport board members, spoke during public comment. While pleased the government body was taking steps to preserve the courthouse, Ross said it was disheartening an “exchange of ideas” never happened in a face-to-face meeting between city officials and CAS.
“But our group is not giving up,” she said.
However, she primarily wanted to speak as a taxpayer who attended Tuesday’s special meeting, which she claimed had “an air of secrecy around it.”
“The special meeting was scheduled and posted on the city website at what felt like the last possible moment, and without any information except for the subtle agenda item titled ‘discussion of city facilities and city department space needs,’” Ross said, adding handouts weren’t posted.
North Carolina law mandates all notices of a special meeting from governments be posted 48 hours in advance, including meeting time, place and reason.
According to Southport City Clerk Noah Saldo, the Dec. 10 meeting was listed on the city’s bulletin board, emailed to Sunshine List subscribers, published on Southport city’s website and on its social media by Wednesday, Dec. 4
“The notice and any agenda or material I have is also posted to the agenda portal on the city website,” Saldo wrote in an email.
But Ross questioned the city for relying on a Sunshine List to reach everyone.
“Is this the transparency that was spoken to time and time again and again in campaign statements?” she asked.
She lauded Coring and clarified she was not against giving police the resources they need to function at the top of their game. However, Ross echoed Alderman Mosteller’s complaints going against Moseley’s evaluation.
“Leadership does not ask a question and ignore the answer if it does not fit what you want it to be,” she said, adding that a Facebook post shouldn’t replace governing either and officials ought to remain open to constructive citizen feedback.
Alt took to social media a day after the aldermen’s historic courthouse vote. He touted the city’s contributions to civic organizations and nonprofits and reiterated CAS never had a business plan in place, which he grilled Bachara on during October’s council meeting.
“There is a clear need for office space,” Alt wrote. “To turn the Old Courthouse over to any civic group, after investing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars, to remediate and restore the historic building, (and then raise taxes to cover the $15-$18 million costs of new buildings), to any third party, who has never, in seven years shown a detailed business plan to raise the sums needed to complete the restoration, and upkeep, would never pass the fiduciary test.”
CAS board member Sevaldson said during Thursday’s public comment period it was clear the mayor and a majority of aldermen were against the public-private partnership for a while. He also questioned transparency not being followed through and said the aldermen’s failed promises and stalled communication to meet with the arts board was why detailed plans weren’t shared.
A written comment was sent to the aldermen from a former city finance director and Southport alderman candidate, Bonnie Bray, who attended the special meeting.
“The State Port Pilot editorial accurately calls out your lack of transparency, your bait-and-switch tactic, your careless handling of facts, and your effort to shift the blame for your actions on to others,” she wrote. “I would add, your unsuccessful attempts to appear rational to that list. … I didn’t expect much from this meeting, but you delivered even less, and I will have to support your folly with my taxdollars for the privilege. No, thank you.”
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