Great Hang-ups owners withdraw rezoning proposal

COLUMBIA – The corner of West Broadway and West Boulevard will remain unchanged for the moment.

Mark Nichols and Patra Mierzwa have withdrawn their request to rezone their roughly 0.6 acre collection of properties that includes their business, Great Hang-ups, from residential to planned commercial. The owners are unsure of their next step.

"We just decided that this was not the right time," Nichols said.

The decision to withdraw comes in the wake of the Planning and Zoning Commission's recommendation to the City Council to deny the request. The rezoning proposal was tabled twice before commission members voted 4-3 against recommending its approval at its Jan. 7 meeting.

The property owners hoped to sell the rezoned property or build a two-story, 12,000 square-feet mixed-use building, according to a previous Missourian report.

The building that the owners envisioned would have 6,000 square-feet for commercial use on the ground floor and the remaining 6,000 square-feet for residential use on the second floor.

Representatives of the Sunset Lane Neighborhood Association and a number of neighbors filed a protest petition against the rezoning.

Nichols is still optimistic of the property's commercial future, however.

"I think a lot of people really realized that commercial development is the most appropriate use of this corner because of the fact that in the 68 years that this building has been here, there has always been a business," Nichols said.