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A view of a small portion of the 46.53-acre lot at Oakview Crossing.
An investment group called Mosaic Capital closed on the Oakview Crossing property this week to make the city whole on the remainder of a $1 million dollar loan.
Oakview Crossing is the 46.53-acre development site between Walmart and the Ingles Shopping Center in Hartwell. It was originally proposed in 2012 to be the location of a $40 million mixed-use complex that would have included a 100-unit senior housing complex and an AnMed Health medical services complex.
The project was held up until 2017 when the city authorized a loan obtained by Oakview Crossing LLC through the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Economic Development Loan and Grant Program.
This most recent $1 million loan was through the REDLG program, or Red Legs, in which the USDA provides zero-interest loans to local utility providers — in this case the city of Hartwell.
According to city manager Jon Herschell, Oakview Crossing, LLC has been in default and not making the monthly $10,000 payments since March 2020 and the city has been making those payments instead.
“We helped finance it. We did a loan through USDA that went to some of the improvements on the property,” Herschell said. “When it sold, we got some proceeds from the sale and we turned around and paid off the loan. We don’t have that debt anymore or that liability anymore. It’s paid off.”
With the sale of the property, the city no longer has to pay the monthly payments scheduled for the next seven years.
“The city was able to retire it and put it behind us,” Herschell said.
Herschell said he does not know the specifics of what Mosaic Capital plans to do with the property but expects the company to utilize the lenient B2 zoning of the property.
“Their plans are to do some kind of mix-use,” Herschell said. “Probably a combination of some commercial and some residential.”