Old look becomes new

      Four tenants lined up for renovated Watermark

The Watermark Tower will again become the landmark it was in 1927 when its 10 floors made it the tallest building in Alabama, according to James Lloyd, an agent for the company renovating the building.

Watermark Tower LLC will renovate the building to its original façade, Lloyd told The Star on Friday.  Inside, 58,000 square feet will be redone to meet green Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certified standards, Lloyd said.

The former AmSouth building on the corner of Noble and 10th streets has sat nearly empty since a fire in 2003 damaged the building.  In 2005, the Anniston Water Works and Sewer Board bought the building to save it from being demolished, hoping to find a developer to renovate the building so the water board could then occupy the lower two floors and the basement.  In November, it finally found a developer to hand the project to — Watermark Tower LLC.

Since December, the company has had 15 people working on the building.  Lloyd had contacted the city and the county about requesting a portion of the stimulus-funded Recovery Zone Facility Bond program in December, he said.

The bond program, created by the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act, commonly known as the stimulus package, can be used for public or private projects.  For this project, Anniston will have to issue the bonds because the project will be done in the city.  The bonds will be offered for sale to investors and would have to be repaid with interest by the company, according to Ken Joiner, Calhoun County administrator.

“A bond issue is very simple,” Joiner said.  “It’s the same as you going to the bank and borrowing money.  The only difference is there are people who buy those bonds at a face value of, usually they’re in denominations of, $5,000.”

      The public money in these bonds comes from a 35 percent rebate of the interest paid on the bonds.  That rebate was offered to motivate businesses and government agencies to do projects now, Joiner said.

"The federal government is willing to reimburse interest on projects;' he said.  "If they've got a project that needs to get done, they want to expedite them doing it, and this is an incentive:'

The corporation has secured a $1.1 million construction loan that would cover about half the cost of the first phase of the project, demolition of the inside and restoration of the outside of the building.  On Thursday, the county allocated $4.9 million of its share of recovery zone facility bonds to the project.  The bond money would cover the entire cost of the two- phase project.

"The plan would be to, instead of turning it (the construction loan) into a permanent loan, it would become part of the bond deal:' Lloyd said.

The project will eventually employ 50 people for the next 12 to 18 months, and it will create 50 permanent jobs once the Lloyd said.  Currently, the corporation has four tenants, including Anniston Water Works, lined up to lease five floors of the building once it is ready for occupation, he said.  Coldwater Creek Construction.which Lloyd manages, will do the demolition.

Lloyd has been in property development for more than 20 years.  His company, Colyer-Lloyd Development, closed in January.  The Colyer Building on Quintard Avenue is in foreclosure, a casualty of the closing of the company, Lloyd said.  “I had owned it since 1990,”' he said.  "It's just the economy.  It's just no work.  The bottom line is we had five or six projects and nobody could get funding.  In January Lloyd started working for Watermark Tower LLC.  The company "was created in April 2009, according to records at the Alabama Secretary of State's office, It is co- owned by Hubert Wright and Kent Keys.

Contact staff writer, Laura Camper at 256-235-3545.