The city is one step closer to selling property for the construction of town homes in downtown Hutchinson.
City Council gave a first reading to an ordinance to sell two plots of land to Hutch Uptown Commons. A purchase and development agreement was approved earlier this year. A second reading and adoption of the ordinance must yet take place.
The proposed project is to add 15 rental townhomes, with the possibility for more. The first plot of land to be used is the site of a former medical center a block west of Main Street along First Avenue. The second, also west of Main Street, is the site of the Franklin House on the curve near the Main Street bridge, half a block north of First Avenue.
This map included in the City Council packet shows the properties at 126 and 135 Franklin St. S.W. that are expected to be sites of townhome construction over the next few years. Properties at 125, 135 and 145 Glen St. N.W. could also become part of the development.
The properties, which the city purchased and maintained in hopes of development, will be sold for $1, according to the agreement. The developer has indicated a desire to begin mid-summer in 2022, according to city documents.
The city previously discussed the possibility of moving the Franklin House, which is believed to have originally been the barn of the historic Harrington-Merrill House, Hutchinson’s oldest wood-framed structure built in 1858. The barn is believed to have been moved from the Harrington-Merrill site a few blocks away in the 1940s.
About $15,000 was estimated for the move, $15,000 for the foundation on which the barn would be placed, and another $10,000-$15,000 for miscellaneous costs. City Council unanimously declined to fund the move in August.
At the Nov. 23 City Council meeting, there was no word yet on a plan from Historic Hutchinson to move the building, which has until March 2022 to do so. Council Member Mary Christensen, who serves as president of the Historic Hutchinson Board, said the group was “working on it.”
