Deal Maker?s Car Gets Towed At Train Station Press Conference

At an Aug. 24 press conference announcing the pending sale of the historic Frisco railroad depot on Dickson Street, Rexanne Mansfield got a call on her cell phone. Her car alarm had gone off, and the alarm company wanted to know if anything was wrong.

“She said, ‘Well, I see it going down West Street, so I guess that’s the problem,'” recalls John Lewis, chairman of the Bank of Fayetteville and one of the current owners of the train depot. Mansfield had parked in the Bank of Fayetteville lot next door, and a tow truck was heading south with her car.

Lewis said he went with Mansfield to retrieve her car from the lot on Sixth Street. He said Mansfield didn’t have to pay the $60 tow charge.

“I made sure she got her car,” Lewis said, “and she wasn’t mad about it … I was more upset about it than she was.”

The press conference was being held to announce that the building’s owners — Lewis, Don Heckathorn and Frank Kelly — plan to sell it, along with the 1.6-acre piece of land it sits on, to Mansfield and her husband Steve, who are partners with another husband and wife team, Greg House and Beverly Block. The sale is expected to close in the next 90 days.