Private Financing Ready to Move Forward for Pullman Project
By Art Harvath

“That’s the most I’ve learned about what’s going on in around three months,” Huntington Urban Renewal Authority commissioner Dan Yon said Monday about the Pullman Square project. Paul Davis, assistant general manager of The Transit Authority gave HURA an impromptu update on the project after being asked by HURA chairman Ron Smith to fill in for George McClennen, who did not attend the meeting. McClennen, Huntington’s director of Public Works, usually gives the Authority an update.
“We are certainly excited about the recent announcement of the Supreme Court on Friday,” said Davis about that court’s decision declaring the grants legal. The West Virginia Economic Development Grant Committee awarded the project a $10.6 million grant.
“That means for us Pullman Square is green lights and ready to go,” Davis told HURA. He said the next step is for the WVEDGC to sell the bonds, but he wasn’t sure of the process after that.
“I’m more of the construction guy at TTA,” he said. Davis said the construction of the garages are on schedule. “We’ve had nearly 300 days of work and not one injury on the project, not one lost time day,” said Davis. He said that starting next week more of the pre-cast will be arriving and that up to 16 trucks per day will be coming to the project site. Davis said that he didn’t have any news about leases for the project.
“I’ve spoken with Tim Rollins and he indicated that they were in kind of a holding pattern waiting for the grant, but that they had moved pretty far forward, that they were ready to go with their private financing and they had made great strides in terms of their leasing,” Smith said. Rollins is president of Metropolitan Huntington, the private developer of the project.
To date, Rollins has declined public comment on details of his financing or leasing for the Pullman Square project.