White Sulphur Springs’s newest businesses and the Schoolhouse Hotel project were visited by Sen. Shelley Moore Capito on Friday, June 25. Capito celebrated the many women-owned businesses and the massive hotel project in a press briefing after the tour.
The visit checked in with businesses along Main Street, the West Virginia Great Barrel Company and the upcoming Schoolhouse Hotel project. Since the flood of 2016 and the 2018 creation of the opportunity zone tax breaks for White Sulphur, a number of businesses, nonprofits, and organizations have opened downtown, such as GreenRiver Academy, Ace Hardware, the upcoming Big Draft Brewing, and more.
“I was so happy to meet the new business owners, which you guys have to know are all women-owned businesses — I’m just saying!” Capito said.
Capito visits downtown. |
One organization playing a huge role in the revitalization is the Disability Opportunity Fund (DOF) and its organizer Charlie Hammerman.
“Charlie talked to me about his vision for what could happen here in White Sulphur Springs and it was an amazing vision,” Capito said. “To be honest, it was a big bite off a bigger apple and I thought ‘we will support and help any way we can.’ … This project is beyond my wildest dreams. I can see now that not only is Charlie a man of his word but also someone who can live up to great vision.”
The journey began in part in May 2019, when Hammerman introduced himself to the White Sulphur Springs City Council. Hammerman explained that the fund was started when his now 31-year-old daughter was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. His experience with families with disabilities led him to create the fund.
“We always, as family, tried to help other people with disabilities because she was high-functioning, but other people were not,” Hammerman previously told The West Virginia Daily News. “In 2005, when I was leaving Merrill Lynch, I had the idea to start up a not-for-profit loan fund that would help projects for people with disabilities, so while [DOF] is a not-for-profit, as 501c3, it is, in essence, a non-depository bank. People come to us to borrow money to then go do a project, as long as the project has something to do with disabilities.”
Hammerman and Capito (left) enter the Schoolhouse Hotel. |
By December 2019, DOF’s purchases also included a strip of storefronts on Main Street and several houses nearby, with hopes to renovate and make the homes handicapped accessible. The purchases also included the Green Devil Civic Center, the former White Sulphur Springs Junior High School.
“Then all of the sudden, we saw this building and it was dormant as well,” Hammerman explained. “The last graduating class was 1992, 93. … This building has been standing since 1912. … We asked the city, the mayor [Bruce Bowling], and City Council ‘what do you want to do with this building?’ They basically said we want to have our own hotel.”
The fully Americans with Disabilities Act accessible hotel would be the first in White Sulphur Springs, working with the structure of the former school and leaning into its history.
“We understood that the community needed this building,” Hammerman said. “It would have been a lot cheaper to … tear this building down and put up a prefab. That’s not who we are – we’re a not-for-profit, we’re not worried about making that return on investment as much as trying to preserve what the community wants.”
The result would be a hotel, restaurant, and bar all within city limits, just a few blocks from City Hall.
“Then we combined both of those things — save a building that’s been sitting around for a hundred and nine years. We did a lot of investigation — there’s never been a hotel, whether it’s big or boutique, every aspect of the building will be fully handicapped accessible. … The results are going to be the 28 rooms of the existing building, two new rooms that we’re going to add on. The piece de resistance is the most magnificent rooftop bar, [inspired] by the beauty of the area around here, on top of the tallest building in the area.”
The Schoolhouse Hotel is coming together thanks to the efforts of a number of contractors, including Approved Builders, Security Unlimited, JRP Electrical, LJ Leech, Seven Rivers, Joe Argabrite, Mia Sprayfoam, Northern Grnbr Sprinkler, Thyssenn Krupp Elevator, and Musser’s Acoustical Ceiling. Hammerman also noted it would provide good jobs after its expected opening in early 2022.
Just a sample of the many contractors working on the Schoolhouse Hotel project. |
“This is also about jobs – we will start the process of hiring people in August for this,” Hammerman said. “We’re probably going to create between 40 and 50 jobs. … We’re going to be looking to hired people with disabilities, veterans, and those who are in recovery. That’s the mission of why we’re doing this.”
Hammerman and Capito both celebrated the rebirth of White Sulphur’s downtown after the flood of 2016, which left several deaths and destroyed buildings throughout Greenbrier County.
“It was so sudden and so devastating. Unless you saw it firsthand, you couldn’t have a concept of the height of the water, the mud, the destruction. Everybody pulled together from our state and from out of state — they came. It’s almost like watching a phoenix come back in White Sulphur Springs. The community is alive and well. Things are much better than they were and could be. … I think that White Sulphur can be a great example to our small towns in West Virginia on how to pick yourself up and start to attract businesses.”
“We’ve done over 100 projects nationwide and that was what got us into that work,” Hammerman said. “What’s been keeping us is all of these amazing stories. The story is not about us — the story is about this community and they are the ones who get us excited to do the work.”
Local business and nonprofit owners greet Capito. |
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