Investors hope to save old Lynchburg mill from demolition

LYNCHBURG Two Richmond-area developers are working to pull one of Lynchburg's oldest commercial buildings back from the brink of demolition.

Larry Cluff Jr. and David Dagenhart, along with Chris Chadick of Bethesda, Md., closed last month on the Piedmont Mills building, which bought wheat from local farmers for decades and milled it into flour.

The investors are moving forward with plans to stabilize the building, obtain financing and then renovate it.

"We're doing this project no matter what," Cluff said. "We just don't know which financial institution we're using."

Cluff said he wants to build residential units in the building and perhaps some storefronts.

The building's former owners, who had not been able to find financing to renovate it, said they were glad that Cluff became interested.

"The Piedmont Mill is probably the nicest historic building, in terms of detail and character, downtown," said Hal Craddock, one of the investors who sold the property. "It's just a very, very important piece of architecture downtown. It really needs to be saved."

The brick mill's exact age is uncertain. Doug Harvey, director of the Lynchburg Museum, said city land records show it probably was built in the 1870s, although the mill operated in other buildings for as long as 50 years before that.

Historic accounts have said the mill's predecessors supplied flour to the Confederate army during the Civil War.

Piedmont Mills bought the plant in 1905, according to News and Advance archives. The company later built the tall, white silos that stand uphill from the mill. Milling ceased in 1987.

In 2002, Craddock and other investors bought the mill to save it from demolition. They were in the process of developing the nearby Craddock-Terry Hotel and Event Center near the mill. This year, they learned that the mill could be a hazard to the hotel if it caught fire.

"Because it was a mill, it had belts and wheels and wires and chutes running through all the floors," Craddock said. "When you take all that stuff out, all you have is a floor full of holes that no fireman in his right mind would go through."

Lynchburg Fire Marshal Greg Wormser said the mill is on the Fire Department's "no entry" list. If it catches fire, firefighters will work to save nearby buildings, but most likely would not enter the mill.

The owners decided they had to tear down the mill. But before signing the demolition contract, they decided to give it another chance. A real estate agent started marketing it, and Cluff heard about it from his brother, an investor in Lynchburg's Bluffwalk Center that includes the Craddock-Terry Hotel.

Cluff has worked on several historic renovation projects in the Richmond area, including the Baker Atrium Lofts in Scott's Addition and the conversion of a former mental facility on Grove Avenue into condominiums.

He said the mill's architecture sold him on the Lynchburg project. The silos and several dormers in the roof set the mill apart from block-shaped warehouses.

"Most old brick warehouses aren't that architecturally pleasing," he said. "This one is."

Cluff, Dagenhart and Chadick bought the mill in September for $200,000. Last week, Cluff and an architect examined the mill to make plans to stabilize it within 90 days.

Cluff also hopes to salvage for historic preservation the mill's equipment, much of it original and dating to when it was water-driven.

The developers also are buying the silos, which for years stored wheat to be ground into flour. Cluff envisions them being converted into commercial and residential units with views of the James River.

"That's really unique, to have a really cool design that, quite frankly, most cities haven't seen."

Bryan Gentry is a staff writer at The News and Advance in Lynchburg.