Preis sells 5 Spanish Town properties

Developer Richard Preis has sold five Spanish Town rental properties to Lance Bennett, a well-known neighborhood property owner who plans to renovate the houses using historic tax credits. The price of the sale was not disclosed, but Preis says the properties sold to Bennett include three on North Seventh Street and two on South Capitol Drive. Though located on the same block, those properties are not the ones that were slapped by the Historic Preservation Commission in 2009 with citations of demolition by neglect. At the time, Preis was trying to sell those houses, which front Lakeland Drive, to David Slaughter, who wanted to raze them and develop an apartment complex. Those plans fell through amid vehement opposition from the neighborhood, and the Lakeland Drive properties remain on the market. Preis won’t say what he hopes to do with them or with the adjacent 47,000 square feet of vacant land he still owns on that block. But he is optimistic about what the sale of the five properties to Bennett will mean for the neighborhood. “It’s a unique deal,” Preis says. “I retain the valuable pieces of property that I want, and hopefully the Spanish Town people will understand that what I’m doing is extending an olive branch and doing what I think is the right thing.” —Stephanie Riegel