To the unassuming eye, the vacant lot on East College Street where the Jack Knight building once stood appears dormant. This inactive brown lot, however, conceals a whir of activity.

Sustainable Community Associates,  a development firm founded by three recent Oberlin College graduates, is pouring all its resources and time into the East College Street lot, a project that will culminate in the opening of apartments, shops and restaurants. Progress, unfortunately, has been slow. SCA’s founders — Ben Ezinga, OC ’01, Joshua Rosen, OC ’01, and Naomi Sabel, OC ’02 — have encountered considerable resistance from certain members of the city council, the Environmental Protection Agency and Oberlin residents.

SCA demolished the Jack Knight building in early September 2006, but little progress is visible in the space where the Rax and the Schubert Buick dealership once operated. “We are about to give an open bid to local contractors,” explained Rosen. “Architects are developing the plans.”

Though the SCA received the overall support of the city council, things have not proceeded seamlessly. Its relationship with the city council became strained in September when SCA asked for a one year extension on the deadline of its construction agreement with the city council from December 31, 2006 to December 31, 2007.

While council members Everett Tyree, Ronnie Rimbert and Anthony Mealy expressed deep concern over the requested extension, Council President Daniel Gardner reminded all that extension requests are frequent and routine in the development business.

The EPA presented another obstacle after a citizen alerted the agency to SCA’s removal of a waste oil tank from the old Buick dealership. SCA removed the tank with the oversight of the Bureau of Underground Storage Tank Removal, but the Ohio EPA was concerned the tank removal lacked the necessary approval. SCA promptly arranged meetings with the EPA to clear up the procedural misunderstandings.

The city of Oberlin, however, has little cause for alarm. “It’s no skin off our nose if it happens tomorrow or May,” said Gardner, referring to SCA’s breaking ground. “The city won’t spend any money on infrastructure until they are into the building process.”

Because SCA lacks prior development credentials, the city of Oberlin has been cautious with the approximately $1.5 million Tax Increment Financing loan they promised to SCA. The TIF loan, as reported in the Review in February 2006, is a loan paid back from increased property tax. “They have a lot to do before the city invests,” said Gardner. “Until then, we don’t spend a dime.” SCA must fill 90 percent of its residential units and 80 percent of its retail space before the city will grant them the TIF loan.

Furthermore, SCA possesses a large amount of financing independent of that granted by the city council. “They are bringing 11 million dollars into the city that they raised,” said city council member and Politics Professor Eve Sandberg, “No one has done something like that in recent memory.”

“There has been no significant building in downtown in many years,” said Gardner. “For downtown to survive it needs to bulk up.” This perhaps explains why Oberlin, where 20 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, has been accommodating to a development group feeling its way through its first major endeavor.

“Success begets success,” ruminated Sandberg. “A project like this helps build downtown and protects from box stores on the fringe drawing people away from downtown.”

When, then, will building get underway? In October, Ezinga told the city council that groundbreaking would be in the spring. Rosen updated that estimate last week, saying, “We think we will be breaking ground by the end of the summer.”

For a city thirsting for development, patience must be practiced a little longer.