By Marty Trese, KnoxPages.com
MOUNT VERNON – Work on the multi-million dollar Woodward Opera House restoration project in downtown Mount Vernon has been shut down temporarily. A worker for Shutt Masonry of Fredericktown said this morning that today was their last day on the project for a while. The company has been doing work on the bricks and the elevator shaft at the back of the building in the section known as the annex.
View from front of the Woodward Opera House at the corner of South Main and West Vine – KnoxPages.com photo
Pat Crow of the Woodward Development Corporation issued a news release this afternoon:
The Woodward Development Corporation (WDC) is pleased to announce that it is in the final stages of initiating a combined New Market and Historic Tax Credit program that will result in the restoration and rehabilitation of the C. G. Cooper Building, 107-111 S Main St., in downtown Mount Vernon. This building is commonly referred to as the Woodward Annex.
You may have noticed in recent months the whir of activity happening in that building where spaces were formerly occupied by the Knox County CVB, ThePlace@TheWoodward, and the Pink Cupcake. Early construction limited demolition began late last year, and is now complete. In addition, some structural projects were also initiated to move the project forward, including the completion of the front elevator tower.
In order to fully implement the Tax Credit program that will be providing a major portion of funding for this part of the project, the construction of the Annex building has been paused. As a requirement of the tax credit funding, the WDC must complete all necessary administrative procedures in order to obtain proper title insurance and other threshold criteria, very similar to a closing of a standard real estate transaction. It is anticipated that the Annex portion of the Woodward Opera House restoration project will resume in about a month’s time, once the Historic Tax Credit program has been fully initiated.
The WDC expects the work on the Annex building to be completed in one year. Additional tax credit funding is being sought to move forward with the Woodward building in 2016.
For more information on the Woodward Opera House restoration, please visit www.TheWoodward.org, or contact the WDC at (740) 392-6102.
