Sunday, July 13, 2008

Great news: White House Center sold to group headed by John Waggoner, and refurbishing under way.

In Saturday's Tribune:

Develop New Albany sells White House Centre

Develop New Albany has sold the White House Centre, located at 222 Pearl St., after owning the building for 13 years.

In a news release, organization officials confirmed the sale of the Centre to New Albany White House LLC, which is co-owned by John Waggoner — president of Hornblower Marine Services.

Waggoner led the restoration of the Reibel House, located at 115 Market St., where Hornblower is now located. He was recognized by Develop New Albany and other organizations for his work with the Reibel House.

Full disclosure: I'm a board member of Develop New Albany, with a bit shy of two years service. Irrespective of your opinion about the organization -- and opinions are numerous -- I believe we can all agree that John Waggoner's purchase of the building is a wonderful occurrence.

Yes, it may have taken too many years to achieve, but here it is, and it's good, because his organization's stewardship of the Reibel House speaks for itself ... and we can't say that about every downtown building owner, can we?

(Photo credit: The New Albany-Floyd County Public Library's Indiana History Room online)

1 comment:

John Alton said...

Would be nice to see a store of the type the original White House was go in there. Since the original White House closed down, and the old Fair Store went out of business, New Albany hasn't had a real clothing store downtown that provided clothing for the entire family. Fashion was a Women's clothing store. Would also be nice if such a business, to complete the restoration, would use the name of "The White House".