The City of Washington's Urban Redevelopment Authority met last Wednesday to hear presentations on both of the major projects that the newly-minted authority will tackle for the city.

Chairman Charles Jackson, vice chairman Henry Harris, and secretary treasurer Toombs McLendon IV met with City Attorney Barry Fleming and authority Executive Director David Jenkins and heard from representatives of Stevenson & Palmer Engineering, Gourmet Services Inc., and Carolina Hotel Development.

At the start of the meeting, Jenkins reported to authority members that the new authority is now registered with the Georgia Secretary of State and with the Department of Com- munity Affairs, and that members are registered for redevelopment authority training in January. "This makes us all official," he said.

Rick Clegg with Stephenson and Palmer Engineering gave the members an update on the status of Anderson's Service Station, a dilapidated business on Whitehall Street, one of the city's gateways. The petroleum assessment has been going on for some two years, Clegg said, and Phase 1 and Phase 2 EPA testing has shown no contamination in groundwater, although there was some leadbased paint and asbestos found in the structure. The assessment found three underground fuel storage tanks, plus two oil/water separators.

Clegg said that his company's recommendation is to remove the lead paint and asbestos from the structure, and all the underground tanks. The presentation ended with a consensus of actions that the authority needed to take on the project over the next year.

Authority members heard Ray Mc- Clendon, CEO of Gourmet Services, Inc., and Al Wall of Carolina Hotel Developers make a presentation on the Pope Center hotel project. Authority members had been given a feasibility study and a project pro forma before the meeting. Both McClendon and Wall said that the feasibility study and the numbers in the pro forma show that Washington could support a limited-service 75- room hotel of the Country Inn and Suites brand. If the feasibility study is correct, a projected 65 percent room occupancy rate would run the hotel at a profit, enough to offset the $6 million debt the city would have to incur to build the hotel.

To move the project further along, City Attorney Fleming said, the new authority had to get comfortable with the facts of the hotel project, bring in bond and tax counsel to develop the funding, and then to decide whether or not to do the project with the city council's authorization.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority will meet again Thursday, December 17, at 10:30 a.m. in the city council chambers at City Hall.