FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010
KLMNO Quick slide in fortune for holdout holdout from A1
that surrounded Spriggs’s build- ing is occupied by glass, steel and brick towers. The pizzeria never opened. Two months ago, after his bank threatened foreclosure, Spriggs put the property up for sale for $1.5 million, nearly half of what one developer had once hoped to pay him. No offer has been made. In any life, there can be mo- ments when one’s fortune chang- es in a seismic way, when unfore- seen doors open and opportuni- ties bloom. The lynchpin might be a winning lottery ticket or a new job or a piece of real estate every- one wants. By any measure, Austin Spriggs is a man who missed his Cham- pagne moment. How Spriggs views his fate is hard to know. “I don’t mean to be impolite,
but I’m not going to discuss it,” he said in a soft voice before hanging up the phone at his office, which he relocated to Silver Spring. An- gela Spriggs, his daughter and business partner, did not return a call seeking comment. Spriggs’s refusal to cash in at the market’s peak is an enduring riddle for the developers who tried to persuade him, for anyone chasing that all-too-human dream of chortling all the way to the bank. “I’m haunted by it,” said Jack-
son Prentice, a broker who on be- half of the Trammell Crow devel- opment company said he offered Spriggs $2.75 million for the property, between Fourth and Fifth streets on Massachusetts Av- enue NW.
“I said to him, ‘Austin: This is
like hitting the lottery. It could be something not just for you, but for your whole family,’ ” Prentice re- called. “I told him, ‘You won’t see this price again. Once they build around you, you’re done.’ I kept telling him, but I just couldn’t get through.” Spriggs’s attorney, Clayborne
Chavers, said his client had hoped to “take advantage of the neigh- borhood’s evolution” and had counted on his property’s value growing “by leaps and bounds.” “He had an emotional attach- ment to the property. He wanted to see his family have a viable business there, and he wanted to rise with that value,” he said. The family’s plan for a Ledo Piz-
za franchise died during a renova- tion of the building, when work- ers discovered a crack in the foun- dation (which its real-estate agent said has since been repaired). The family became embroiled in a dis- pute with Adams National Bank, which claims that the Spriggses defaulted on a $1.3million loan. Charles York, the real-estate
agent selling the property, said he has received numerous inquiries from potential investors. “What happened with Spriggs? Who the heck knows — it’s irrelevant,” York said. The property, he said, is a “tremendous opportunity,” even with missing windows, paint- peeling brick and gaping holes in the rear walls. For $1.5 million? Douglas Jemal, a developer whose projects helped revive downtown, snorted at the thought. “Never going to happen in a million years,” he said. Here’s why, Jemal and other de- velopers say: The parcel, at nearly 1,800 square feet, is too small to accommodate underground park- ing. The building was constructed in 1890 and needs a total renova- tion, and it already is dwarfed by two massive complexes. Of course, there’s also the real-
estate market, which has cooled more than a touch in these post- bubble years.
Ilya Zusin is part of a devel- opment team that was willing to pay $715,000 when Adams Na- tional Bank sold the building at a foreclosure auction last fall. But the transaction was not complet- ed, Zusin said, because the Spriggs family contested the fore- closure. “He missed the streetcar of
cash,” said Prentice, a District bro- ker for 38 years who has invoked Spriggs and shown photos of his property during negotiations with other holdouts. “I tell them, ‘You don’t want this to happen to you.’ ” Thirty years ago, when Spriggs and his wife, Gladys, paid $135,000 for the two-story brick building, Massachusetts Avenue east of Mount Vernon Square was defined by decrepit buildings, va- cant lots, the homeless and prosti- tutes. But with the opening of the Convention Center in 2003, the strip became the District’s newest gold coast. Developers scooped up every inch, it seemed, except for Spriggs’s building. To one devel- oper who offered him $1.5 mil- lion, Spriggs asked for five to 10 times that amount. Spriggs also demanded that he be included as the architect on the company’s project. The builder turned him down.
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After word of his resistance spread far and wide, Spriggs held a news conference to announce that he was opening a Ledo fran- chise, and the family started a company, AMS Blue Skies LLC. “We want to give back to the com- munity,” he told reporters in 2006. “Taking the money would be easy. We want to do the hard thing in life.”
But their renovation project floundered. Then, according to
the family’s attorney, Adams Na- tional Bank cut off their loan, which prevented them from com- pensating contractors and resum- ing the renovation. The Spriggses, who are black, believe that the bank discriminated against them, and they’re “contemplating” a multimillion-dollar civil rights suit against Adams National, Chavers said. Joel Aronson, an attorney for the bank, said his client would not
comment. In the meantime, developer
types throw around ideas for the spot. A cafe could work, perhaps, or a bar or restaurant. Whatever opens, Cary Silver- man of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association said, he has the perfect name: “The Holdout,” an eternal reminder to anyone and everyone “to not make unreasonable demands.”
schwartzman@washpost.com
BIGGEST OF THE SEASON! REMEMBER, FATHER’S DAY IS JUNE 20
BILL O’LEARY/THE WASHINGTON POST The Spriggses paid $135,000 for the building 30 years ago.
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From Page One A15
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