Oct 5, 2024 By Paul Paterra 4 min read

The deal for Washington County to purchase the Crossroads Parking Garage in downtown Washington appears to be dead.

Nick Sherman, chair of the county commissioners, reiterated Friday that the county had been under a tight deadline because it planned to use a portion of federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds for the purchase and plans must be in place by Dec. 31.

“The board of commissioners had a gentleman’s agreement in place with the mayor and I thought we were good to go,” Sherman said. “Our attorney drafted an official letter with intent to purchase. We were ready to put it on the agenda and the mayor came in and said, ‘I want another million dollars.’ It’s not like we didn’t want to do it, but it’s ARPA money and we had to say how that money was to be spent by the end of the year. It has to be earmarked and the contract has to be done. We told them that was our timeline. Frankly, the mayor sat on his hands for four months and they missed their window.”

The garage is owned and operated by the Washington Parking Authority, but money from a sale would be distributed to the city, the Washington School District and the county due to a tax-increment financing plan used to build the garage in 2007.

In July, City Council approved the sale of the garage to the county. However, in August, a $4 million offer from the county was turned down by the parking authority.

Sherman said the county could not go above that price because the appraisal from a real estate firm came back at $4 million.

“You’re not allowed to pay more than it was appraised for,” Sherman said.

The county expressed interest in the garage for parking for its employees, who now park at the Courthouse Square garage, which is targeted for demolition to make way for construction of a new public safety complex.

Mayor Jojo Burgess said the city was recently notified that the county was no longer interested in buying the garage.

“If they want to purchase it, they’re more than welcome to, but they just have to come with a real deal,” Burgess said. “They can’t come and basically take it off of us for nothing.”

Burgess said earlier this year that when debt service is taken into account, the $4 million price drops to $2.7 million. The city, which owns 50% of the garage, and the school district, 43%, would receive the bulk of the revenue. The county owns the remainder.

The parking authority voted in September to have Integra Realty Resources of Pittsburgh conduct an independent appraisal of the garage at a cost of $5,001, the cost of which would be split between the city, Washington School District and the parking authority.

Joe Thomas, parking authority executive director, said the authority hasn’t moved forward with the appraisal after being informed the county was no longer interested in the garage.

“We made arrangements with an appraiser to do it, but we’ve not moved forward with obtaining the appraisal because at the present time there doesn’t appear to be any reason to spend to do it,” he said. “If that changes, we will revisit (the appraisal).”

At that September parking authority meeting, board chair Rick Mancini said $4 million was not an acceptable price.

The garage opened in May 2007 and cost an estimated $14.1 million to build. Since then, the garage has been losing money.

“It’s unfortunate,” Sherman said. “That is a garage that’s losing money for the school and for the city every year. To be a good neighbor and a good business partner, we were looking to take that off their hands and absorb a building that was losing money every year. They could take that money and put it in their capital budget, do the appropriate fixes the school and the city need to do.

“I’m just sad for the residents of the city of Washington and the Washington School District that we were unable to reach an agreement.”