Investors hope to save old Lynchburg mill from demolition

Two investors are attempting to pull one of Lynchburg’s oldest commercial buildings back from the brink of demolition.

Larry Cluff, of the Richmond area, and his business partner, Chris Chadick of Bethesda, Md., closed last month on the Piedmont Mills building on Jefferson Street, a building that supplied flour to troops during wars and to United Nations relief programs in World War II, and bought wheat from local farmers for decades.

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 money 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 research into the city’s 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 that the mill’s predecessors supplied flour to the Confederate army in the Civil War.

Piedmont Mills bought the plant in 1905, according to information in The News & Advance’s 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 because they heard that its owner planned to demolish it. Ironically, the previous owner had bought it in 1998 to save it from another owner who had demolition plans.

However, Craddock and his business partners were tied up with developing the Craddock-Terry Hotel and Event Center near the mill. Craddock said they never had money to start on the mill.

Earlier 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 burned, firefighters would work to save nearby buildings but most likely would not enter the mill.

The owners decided they had to tear down the mill. They got a demolition expert to examine the building and give them a contract, Craddock said.

Before signing the contract, they decided to give the building another chance. A real estate agent started marketing it, and Craddock asked the Lynchburg Historical Foundation to tell its supporters about it.

“We just thought it was important for them to know that one of the most historic buildings downtown and one of the most important buildings downtown was in danger of being lost,” Craddock said. “You never know when someone of means … will say, ‘I’d like to be the guy who saves that building.’”

Cluff ended up being that person.

Cluff has worked on several historic renovation projects in the Richmond area, including the Baker Atrium Lofts. His projects have converted old mental hospitals and fire engine warehouses into living spaces.

He said that his brother, an investor in the Bluffwalk Center that includes the Craddock-Terry Hotel, told him about Piedmont Mills. “They were going to tear this building down and he suggested that I look at it,” he said. “I wasn’t really interested in it at first, but I like the area.”

He said that the mill’s architecture sold him on the structure. Those features include several dormers in the roof and silos uphill that set the mill apart from block-shaped warehouses. “Most old brick warehouses aren’t that architecturally pleasing. This one is.”

Cluff bought the mill for $200,000 in September. Last week, Cluff and an architect looked through the mill to make plans to stabilize it within 90 days. Also, Cluff and Chadwick are arranging for a loan to renovate the structure.

They also are buying the white silos uphill from the mill, which for years stored wheat to be ground into flour. Cluff envisions commercial and residential units that get views of the James River 80 feet high.

“That’s really unique, to have a really cool design that, quite frankly, most cities haven’t seen.”