Or where did the downtown plumbers go?
By Lauren Otis, Business Editor
Up until recently, the commercial building at 190 Witherspoon St. in Princeton was a hive of activity from early in the morning until late afternoon, bustling with N.C. Jefferson Plumbing & Heating’s distinctive yellow trucks and vans on their way to and from plumbing, heating, bathroom or kitchen remodeling, and other contracting jobs.
Today the site is deserted, with only a small handwritten sign on the door to the former N.C. Jefferson showroom indicating that the company has moved out, to a new location in Rocky Hill.
The story of why the 60-year-old family-owned business felt compelled to move from the site it has called home since 1988 turns out not to be a simple tale of growing pains or expansion plans. It is a situation complicated by factors including differing tenant-landlord expectations, altruism, and Princeton’s skyrocketing real estate values.
At present, the site — 190-198 Witherspoon St. — which includes a separate building housing Jay’s Dry Cleaners & Tailor, is for sale, listed by N.T. Callaway in Princeton with an asking price of $1,330,000.
Bruce Jefferson, N.C. Jefferson’s president, said he would have preferred to stay in Princeton but felt compelled to move because, without a lease at the site, “rather than getting a purchaser who said ‘You have to be out in 30 days,’ I said, ‘I’ve got to get out.’” Mr. Jefferson said he has not had a formal lease for 10 years.
This meant abandoning N.C. Jefferson’s bath and kitchen showroom, as well as other substantial improvements he put into the site over the years, including constructing offices and installing a heating system throughout, Mr. Jefferson said. “I took a two car garage and turned it into a showroom,” he said.
”The problem is our showroom. We couldn’t bring it with us,” said Jill Jefferson, N.C. Jefferson’s office manager and Mr. Jefferson’s daughter. The showroom displays have been brought to the warehouse at N.C. Jefferson’s new site, located at 5 Crescent Ave. in Rocky Hill, and “people have done a good job of finding us,” but “we fear the move and not having a storefront might cause us business problems,” Ms. Jefferson said.
The Jeffersons contend that they had an agreement with the former landlord, Douglas Corlette, to have a first shot at purchasing the building before he sold to anyone else. “We did have first rights of refusal to buy the building but we weren’t given the opportunity,” Ms. Jefferson said.
Mr. Jefferson said he had a written agreement to this effect, which expired, and subsequently had an oral agreement with Mr. Corlette. “Every year I went to him, and he said I’m not ready to sell, not ready to sell,” Mr. Jefferson said. Then Mr. Corlette told him he had donated the building to the Lawrence-based Princeton Area Community Foundation, Mr. Jefferson said.
When he contacted the foundation about selling the property to him, Mr. Jefferson said he was informed the property would be sold commercially because of the foundation’s fiduciary obligation to maximize the gift, Mr. Jefferson said.
The property was originally listed at $1.7 million by N.T. Callaway almost two years ago, about $500,000 more than it was worth, Ms. Jefferson said. “It wasn’t really feasible for us to think about buying it,” she said.
”I couldn’t pay a million for this, I couldn’t sell enough toilets,” Mr. Jefferson said.
”I’m at that age and stage where I can be pretty forgetful, and I honestly don’t recall having any conversation along those lines,” Mr. Corlette said of the Jeffersons’ contention they had an oral agreement with him regarding selling the property.
Mr. Corlette said he chose to donate the property to the Princeton Area Community Foundation because “I thought it would be a good cause,” as well as the fact that “I don’t have to pay Princeton Borough taxes anymore and I enjoy that very much.”
Asked how he identified the PACF as the recipient of his gift, Mr. Corlette said “Dr. Bill Burks here in town has a considerable interest in that organization. He thinks it’s a fine outfit.”
Dr. William P. Burks, a retired surgeon who is immediate past chairman of PACF’s board of trustees and still serves on the board, said the Jeffersons “haven’t paid rent for months and months and months, and they raked Doug Corlette over the coals.” (Ms. Jefferson said she would not comment on rent payments for 190 Witherspoon St. other than to note that this was but one part of N.C. Jefferson’s broader complaint about the agreement it says it had with Mr. Corlette.)
Dr. Burks said, “I’m not about to get into a war in the papers over this.” He subsequently referred a reporter to PACF President and Executive Director Nancy W. Kieling.
”He’s made an extraordinarily generous gift to this community,” Ms. Kieling said of Mr. Corlette, adding “we think the world of him.”
At present, the Marietta, Ga.-based Dechomai Foundation has an agreement with Mr. Corlette to oversee turning his gift into cash before the PACF receives it, Ms. Kieling said. Princeton Borough records indicate Mr. Corlette transferred title to the property to the Dechomai Foundation on Sept. 25, 2006 for a sum of $100. The Dechomai Foundation’s Web site states its purpose is “to assist charitable organizations and donors in the often-daunting process of receiving, managing, liquidating and finally granting proceeds from non-cash donations.”
Asked about any oral, or other, agreement Mr. Corlette and the Jeffersons may have had about the property, Ms. Kieling said, “I can’t comment on that because I know nothing about that.”
It is “no secret” that the 190-198 Witherspoon St. property is for sale, Ms. Kieling said, and “Mr. Jefferson is welcome to buy it just as is anyone else.”
Asked how Mr. Corlette identified PACF as the recipient of his gift of the property, Ms. Kieling said: “He came to us directly. People in the community know of us and our work, so he came to us.”
Mr. Jefferson said he is examining his options, including legal ones, to recoup his investment in the 190 Witherspoon St. building. Beyond that his focus is on moving forward with the 18-employee business.
Ms. Jefferson said that despite the issue of the showroom, “the move has been a positive thing for us,” with more room for supplies, loading and unloading and parking N.C. Jefferson’s fleet of vehicles.