Kings Yard building for sale

By Lauren Heaton

After nearly 30 years under the ownership of one Springfield family, the long building that houses most Kings Yard shops will be sold at auction at 4 p.m. on Friday, April 2, at the Bryan Community Center. The building houses 10 retail spaces, nine of which are currently occupied, and the sale includes an adjoining wooded property to the north behind the post office.

Kings Yard owner Cathy Christian said in a statement released on Friday that she decided, “it was time to downsize my responsibilities.” Christian purchased the yard last year from her father, Roger Hart, who died after 30 years of running the yard. She had purchased the Tavern from him in 1986 and said that she plans to maintain both the restaurant and the rest of Kings Yard, including the buildings occupied by Sam and Eddie’s Open Books, Asanda Imports, Rita Caz and La Llama Place. Her property also includes the parking lot behind the shops that houses the farmers market six months out of the year. Christian referred additional questions to auction representative Bart Sheridan.

The property for sale is about 4/10 of an acre and includes approximately 7,500 square feet of retail space inside a building with 42 feet of frontage on Xenia Avenue and about 80 feet of store front inside the yard, Sheridan said. The shops currently leasing space in the building are Bonadies Glass Studio, Jennifer’s Touch, Toxic Beauty, Yellow Springs Pottery, Footprints of the Past, the Village Greenery, Tibet Bazaar, the Tie Dyed Gift Shop and Art Happens. The sale also includes 1/10 of an acre of unoccupied wooded property that connects to the building and continues northward, behind the post office. The sale offer does not include the brick walkways that provide access to the shops, but the agreement has a shared maintenance clause and an easement that guarantees access to the shop owners.

The retail building was the anchor of the Kings Yard plaza planned in the 1970s by the Upland Corporation, a group of village leaders who had purchased the property from the Antioch Publishing Company, according to Yellow Springs Pottery co-op member Evelyn LaMers. The pottery was the first tenant of the building, which has remained full or close to it since Hart bought it in the early 1980s.

According to Sheridan, the auction will start off with no requisite opening bid, but a fair market value could be partially determined by the annual revenue generated by the lease agreements for the building, which currently totals $89,000. The original building fronting on Xenia Avenue is over 100 years old and has been added onto several times, he said, adding, “We believe that the property really could go for over $300,000.”

The process is expected to take place in about an hour, and the final bid will be subject to the seller’s confirmation at the close of the bidding. All building inspections must be completed prior to the date of the auction, Sheridan said, but the sale comes with a general warranty confirming that the property has no liens or encumbrances and is current on its property taxes. The closing is expected to occur the first week of May.

“There will be no open house per se, but we invite people to come in and arrange to see the property,” Sheridan said.

Contact: lheaton@ysnews.com