FAIRBORN — Fairborn City Council has approved the purchase of 125 W. Main St. — otherwise known as the former 5/3 Bank downtown Fairborn branch location.
What the city plans to do with the building is currently unknown.
“We know that it is a very key piece of our downtown,” Fairborn City Manager Rob Anderson said during the Aug. 5 council meeting. “It’s immediately adjacent to the Commons, where we have most of our events. We didn’t want it to fall into the hands of someone who is going to put a use there that is not keeping up with what we want to do downtown.”
Anderson highlighted during the meeting that the building has been for sale for more than one year. He said the city negotiated a price of $250,000 after the property was listed at $400,000. It is at the corner of Main and Wright Streets adjacent to Main Street Commons, formerly known as 5/3 Commons.
The city is hiring a consulting firm to conduct a market study to determine the best use of the building.
“We’d like to get the highest and best use there,” Anderson said. “We do not intend to put any city offices there. It’s meant to be a redevelopment piece or development piece by the private sector. We do not anticipate any city offices or facilities there. I can guarantee that.”
The City of Fairborn had issued some bonds for some previous Broad Street purchases and some money is still leftover from those initial issuances. Anderson said the leftover funds will cover nearly $200,000 of the purchase price, while the remaining $50,000 will come from delaying or deleting some 2019 budgeted items.
Anderson said the city is not going into further debt because “this is money we already have in the bank, so to speak,” he said, highlighting that the funds are being “re purposed” through supplemental appropriations that will likely be discussed at the next council meeting, slated for 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 2.
“I think it’s important that we have control over what goes in our Main Street down there,” Keller said just before council members unanimously approved the agenda item.
