Will Hoffman's go the way of the Scenic Salinger? Council may decide tonight

The old Hoffman's Furniture store at 55 South Main is looking for a new lease on life, too. (Courtesy photo)

ROCHESTER - Rochester's City Council could vote tonight on a resolution authorizing the city to buy the old Hoffman Furniture store on North Main Street, which could then be marketed to developers much like the Scenic and Salinger blocks were to a Newmarket firm earlier this year.

City Manager Blaine Cox said last week that this new aggressive approach to development has proved to be necessary by the decades of neglect these building have endured.

"Developers look and run numbers of what it costs to rehab or build upon these building and they look what they're going to collect on rent and revenues," Cox said. "Hoffman's has been empty for 30 years, so the numbers don't work. So the city tips the scales and makes the numbers work."

In the case of the Scenic Salinger blocks those numbers allowed Chinburg Properties of Newmarket to acquire the buildings at no cost in exchange for $8.4 million development project.

This new and aggressive strategy to infuse life into the downtown has been a long time coming, "but now what's changed is we now have a Council willing to invest some city funds to make it happen," Cox added.

Steven Beaudoin of Rochester, a state rep, said he understands where the city is coming from - "the downtown is slowly dying," he notes - but he says that the $350,000 the council may approve tonight to buy the Hoffman building aren't city funds; they're taxpayers money.

Speaking of the city's $8.4 million development agreement with Chinburg Properties to develop the Scenic Salinger blocks on South Main, he added, "As a taxpayer I'm subsidizing this development."

He fears the same thing could be in store for the Hoffman's Furniture space at 55 North Main St.

And he said taxpayers will continue to subsidize deals like that at the Scenic Salinger block for some 10 years with property tax relief that allows them to be taxed at their predevelopment assessments instead of the $8.4 million they'll be worth upon completion.

"Where's the advantage to me as a taxpayer in Rochester?" Beaudoin added. "There is none."

Cox, however, believes the Scenic Salinger development with its addition of retail spaces and some 50 market rate apartments is a formula for success.

"We get some market rate apartments and people in the downtown that have disposable income, that's what we want," Cox said.

The Hoffman building purchase would be made with money from the city's unassigned fund balance.

The City Council could vote the purchase through tonight or table it for discussion on July 21, Cox said.