Media-Shy District Property Owner Comes Out Talking

Austin L. Spriggs, the reclusive holdout whose refusal to sell his townhouse to developers made it a citywide curiosity, did something out of character yesterday.

He spoke publicly.

Where once Spriggs shrugged off interview requests as surely as he had spurned the fortune offered by developers, he apparently now embraces the old advertising adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity.

Two days after a Washington Post story on the holdout and one day after a segment on "The Today Show" about his refusal to sell, Spriggs and his daughter, Angela, called a news conference.

Not long ago, Spriggs could have gotten $2.5 million for his property.

Instead, he got the Ledo Pizzamobile pulling up outside the 19th century building jutting precariously from a deep crater where a luxury condo tower is under construction.

Out hopped Jamie and Rob Beall, the two brothers whose grandfather started the Maryland-based franchise business. Across the front of the little townhouse where Spriggs will someday sell their pizza, the Beall brothers unfurled a large Ledo banner.

Spriggs and his daughter professed pride in their decision. Theirs was not a losing negotiating tactic, they insisted; it was principled decision.

"We want to give back to the community," said Spriggs, 69, wearing a black business suit accented by a neatly folded white pocket handkerchief. "Taking the money would be easy. We want to do the hard thing in life."

Spriggs acknowledged that he had a price in mind at which he would let go of the building -- $5 million, double the highest offer of $2.5 million.

The newcomer to the food business will have to sell a lot of pizza to approach what he could have pocketed had he sold. The typical Ledo Pizza franchise holder earns annual profits of $150,000 to $200,000, said Jamie Beall.

At that rate, Spriggs will have to be in business for more than 12 years before he can break even.