Property owners say block is not for sale

Shelley Ravipudi views her properties on Lyon Street as long-term investments and doesn’t plan to sell them anytime soon. Even a purchasing option promising $175,000 for the property at 506 Lyon St. didn’t change her mind.

“I didn’t feel there was any amount of money that would make that much difference to me,” Ravipudi said. She estimates she has invested $60,000 into the lot, including the purchase price and the cost of razing a house that once stood there.

Ravipudi’s stubborn streak is bad news for Yarco Cos. of Kansas City, which is pursuing purchasing options for the seven properties that line the south side of Lyon Street between Fifth Street and Circus Avenue.

Jason Thornhill, an agent of First Tier Realtors in Columbia, has been acting on Yarco’s behalf, offering property owners $2,500 to accept two-year purchasing options that would fix the price of the property at a predetermined amount and give Yarco the sole opportunity to buy it within two years. The options, however, do not obligate Yarco to buy the lots.

Yarco specializes in low-income government subsidized housing and already has a presence in Columbia, most notably at Columbia Square Town Homes, which once was a crime-ridden and rundown complex of low-income housing but has since been cleaned up.

Stuart Hunt, director of development at Yarco, declined to detail the company’s plans for Lyon Street.

“This is at the very front end of a proposal that’s at the very early stages,” Hunt said. “Until we put together the acquisition, then we really don’t have a plan. If and when we do, we’ll be approaching the city with our plan, and it will be a matter of public knowledge at that point.”

Boone County Assessor Tom Schauwecker said the north-central Columbia neighborhood that includes Lyon Street is making a transition from single-family to multi-family homes. Because the area is zoned for medium-density housing, he said, that transition and Yarco’s pursuit of land there make economic sense.

“If you gather a block of properties, the value of that whole block increases,” Schauwecker said. He said he thinks Yarco is operating under that premise.

Ravipudi said Thornhill first approached her in August 2006, just a year after she bought the property at 506 Lyon St. He offered an option that called for a purchase price of $68,000. Ravipudi turned it down but said Thornhill returned in October with an offer of $175,000.

“They realized I wanted to stay in the area, and there was another house on the block for sale that I would have enough to buy (with that offer),” she said. Still, she wasn’t interested because she has a newly built fourplex across the street.

“I have to be concerned about the competition. ... I didn’t want to jump into any kind of deals,” she said.

Ravipudi hasn’t met with Thornhill or any Yarco representative since October. She said that in December the company tried to set up a face-to-face meeting to settle the deal, but she replied she was too busy.

Richard Winjum, who owns property at 606 Lyon St., has also rejected a purchasing option. He declined to discuss the reason, saying it was a personal choice.

Rob Alongi accepted a purchasing option for his property at 502 Lyon St. He said Thornhill told him little about what Yarco wanted to build.

Thornhill said that part of the problem in negotiating the options was that property owners wanted information he didn’t have.

“(Yarco) never disclosed to me what their plans were to do with that land or those houses,” Thornhill said. The company told him only to “contact these owners and attempt to get options to purchase those lots for future purchases,” he said.

Ravipudi said Thornhill never told her that Yarco focuses on government-subsidized housing.

“Now that I do know, I would definitely be more reluctant” to sell, she said.