CONTROVERSIAL DEVELOPER

By Mark Ferenchik

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

It’s just a plaque on a city-owned building, but it shouldn’t be there, the Columbus mayor’s office says.

So the city plans to take down the bronze plaque that developer Charles Adrian stuck to the facade of the Lincoln Theater in July.

“We feel we have all the rights to take it down,” said Boyce Safford, deputy chief of staff for Mayor Michael B. Coleman, after he received a legal opinion from the city attorney’s office.

Adrian thinks he has the right to display the $1,100 plaque because of an agreement with the Columbus Urban Growth Corp., the city’s nonprofit development arm, which bought the 77-year-old landmark at 775 E. Long St. from Adrian in 2003. The agreement said Adrian could place a plaque of his choosing on the building.

Safford said the city, which bought the building from Urban Growth last year for $1 million, isn’t obligated to abide by the terms of that agreement.

Adrian said the first plaque disappeared in 2004, so he put up another one. It says Adrian saved the building from demolition and that he envisioned it as an entertainment venue for the community’s youth.

Safford said he doesn’t know when the city will remove the plaque but said it would be soon.

He expects Adrian to put up a legal fight.

City Attorney Richard C. Pfeiffer Jr. said he couldn’t comment on his office’s opinion to the mayor’s office, citing attorney-client privilege.

Adrian said he wanted to see a copy of the legal opinion before commenting. Coleman’s spokesman, Mike Brown, said the letter is privileged and the office wouldn’t release it.

Adrian has been a lightning rod for criticism in the neighborhood, where people say he has a checkered history with housing and retail projects such as Poindexter Tower, which elderly condominium owners had to vacate, and Mount Vernon Plaza.

Adrian has said he saved Mount Vernon Plaza from bankruptcy in 1988 and problems in Poindexter Tower didn’t begin until a court-appointed receiver took over in 2001.

Brown said the theater, which the city is trying to redevelop, is a “historic icon” for the Near East Side’s black community that Coleman believes can be a cornerstone to transform a blighted neighborhood.

Safford said he didn’t think the city would pursue charges against Adrian for damaging the building.

Some think it should.

Willis Brown, president of the King-Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association and a community activist, delivered a letter to Pfeiffer’s office this week asking him to file graffiti and vandalism charges against Adrian.

“This guy chiseled out limestone,” he said.

In his letter, Brown said architectural and structural integrity of the facade has been compromised.

mferenchik@dispatch.com