With the city trying to decide what to do with the Horsecollar Saloon, it becomes apparent that it may have to be razed. Will other buildings in the area meet with the same fate?
As previously posted, the total cost of renovating Carl's Bad Tavern is estimated at $360,000. Even with Federal, State, and city aid, close to half of that would have to be paid by the prospective owner.
It's hard to fathom businesses downtown simply getting torn down. That's what happens when you quit spending money.
With these businesses not making money, are more of these incidents in store?
Just like with houses, it's often less expensive to construct a new commercial building on fresh ground rather than rehabilitate one from a bygone era. New energy-efficient materials and building practices swing the pendulum even further into the camp of new construction. This leaves us with the question of what to do with the old buildings as they decay, which is complicated by the nostalgia "old timers" feel for their youth played out in and around many of those old buildings.
Jefferson has done much better than most when it comes to maintaining the integrity of the downtown, but economics will continue to make it difficult to justify rehab of buildings around the Square.
The city of Jefferson is waiting for a massive injection of taxpayer money for these projects, similar to the windfall they inherited for the upcoming overpass.
The history of downtown Jefferson is the story of old, historic buildings being torn down.
The First Methodist Church in the 200 block of East State Street met its fate in 1954. The Baptist Church a block west of the square was razed in 1980.
The Jefferson Creamery was destroyed, as well as the Jefferson Bottling Company. Cliff and Millie's furniture store was destroyed by fire, as were several other local businesses.
It is not realistic to expect older, less-efficient buildings to be upgraded. The real question is how long before the entire downtown district is abandoned?
I looked at the valuations of some of the downtown businesses and they are extraordinarily low. If the downtown businesses are having a difficult time making it now (some not making it), then spending big bucks on rehabbing won't help the bottom-line. That will just increase their occupancy costs.
In my opinion, retail shopping in Jefferson is dying, if not dead. Spending millions of dollars to rehab or to build new won't help. Wal-Mart in Boone will be cheaper. Ames and Des Moines are close enough for big purchases.
Jefferson is turning into a bedroom community. The bad thing ... it's a bedroom community in the middle of nowhere.
I don't know who you are, anon, but you should adopt a screen name. That last post was dead on.
I couldn't have said it better. The town of Manning, Iowa is smaller than Jefferson, but experiencing the same difficulties attracting businesses. What they have done recently is accept their future as a bedroom community (also in the middle of nowhere) and offer massive tax abatements and other financial incentives, hoping to attract commuters.
The thinking is that, as the community grows along those lines, small businesses will once again begin to take root.
Jefferson wrote their own eulogy years ago when they missed multiple opportunities for future growth. They have already been documented here in previous blog postings.
Jefferson a bedroom community? 40 miles from Ames. 65 miles from Des Moines. Either one is a long, long commute 5 days a week. If U.S. 30 was expanded to a divided 4-lane from Jefferson to Ogden, perhaps a daily drive to Ames wouldn't be so bad. There are a few Jeffersonians that make that drive. With gasoline having hit about $4.50 a gallon not so long ago, such commutes are a financial risk. Perhaps all-electric vehicles may help some day.
A person is willing to live in a bedroom community for a variety of reasons. Perhaps property taxes are lower (unincorporated communites). Perhaps most of the homes are newer and filled with college educated couples with school-aged children. You move to a bedroom community looking for others just like you.
It's still a long shot to think that Jefferson can re-define itself as an attractive bedroom community. A lot of buildings and houses need torn down and properties need cleaned up. It need to be made attractive to young college educated folks because they are incredibly optimistic people.
Jefferson may not have a choice. The current course is taking it to a ghost town. You might be right, Rick, Jefferson should try to be a bedroom community or face a future as nothing but farm land. Jefferson is about 6 square miles. At 640 acres per square mile, Jefferson occupies about 3,800 acres. That's a good sized farm, which means a whole lot of potential federal farm subidies. I'm guessing that most local farmers hope that Jefferson just disappears.
We have until December 21 to find out if anybody shows any interest in taking over the deed to the Last Draw Saloon. It's really hard to imagine that happening.
I wish that the engineer's report was made public. If I were interested in owning that property, I would insist on seeing it, as there may be other means of renovation which would not be as expensive as the proposal put forth by Bob Shwarzkopf. His idea sounds like a very extensive plan.
Maybe all of the business owners currently losing money around the square should follow suit and donate their buildings to the city. They could then offer to lease them back.
Does anyone have any idea exactly how many of Jefferson's current standing buildings were erected or renovated without taxpayer assistance? It seems to me that these guys just go business as usual until they have a major issue, and then expect somebody else to foot the bill.
These local business owners are not broke. They have plenty of funds saved back. They are so cheap that they won't part with a nickle. That is also why local restaurants can't make it.
Those local business people you refer to have all bailed on Jefferson. They will take their money and run. They expect their kids to pay for fixing up things the way they lft them.
They are going to get a $13 million overpass but can't afford to paint their storefronts. Unbelievable.
$13,000,000 bucks is chump change. This crap is all about the railroad, period. Do you think that they will come in and hire 10,000 Jefferson residents to lay track? No.They will bring in the Chinese, who have worked out so well in the past. Why do you think the Peony Restaurant is already in place? How do you explain that only Chinese is spoken at Wet Goods and Larry's after 11:45 PM? Just to make it fair, Chinese is spoken at the Elks Lodge whenever you walk in there. That's what I have been told. The Mexicans from Perry are pissed off, because the railroad makes them fill out their apps in Chinese, and only 4 in 5 makes the cut.
I challenge anyone to name a building other than a private home and larger than a gas station built in Jefferson without taxpayer subsidies in the past 20 years.
When did Fareway go to North Elm and the Coop build their Niichi(?)soy plant? When was the Dairy Queen built? Have their been any cultural or recreational additions since the bike trail, and when was that built?
Jefferson Automotive/Durbin Auto across from Pamida is new circa 2000. Lee Horbach put up a new State Farm office (although not very large) just on the SE corner of Fareways lot. The Super 8 also isnt 20 years old. Hamilton Redi Mix has a new shop and office as well as plant setup in the last 10 years. American concretes building is less than 20 as well.
I stand corrected on my previous post. Apparently there has been a smattering of buildings that have gone up in the last generation. Not a lot to show for an entire generation, but some construction, none the less.
All of those things were built only with the help of outside taxpayer subsidies. Even the only grocery store, Fareway, was constructed only after generous taxpayer subsidies were offered it.
You might want to check on some of those other places and see if taxpayer money was involved in any of them.
20 comments:
As previously posted, the total cost of renovating Carl's Bad Tavern is estimated at $360,000. Even with Federal, State, and city aid, close to half of that would have to be paid by the prospective owner.
It's hard to fathom businesses downtown simply getting torn down. That's what happens when you quit spending money.
With these businesses not making money, are more of these incidents in store?
Just like with houses, it's often less expensive to construct a new commercial building on fresh ground rather than rehabilitate one from a bygone era. New energy-efficient materials and building practices swing the pendulum even further into the camp of new construction. This leaves us with the question of what to do with the old buildings as they decay, which is complicated by the nostalgia "old timers" feel for their youth played out in and around many of those old buildings.
Jefferson has done much better than most when it comes to maintaining the integrity of the downtown, but economics will continue to make it difficult to justify rehab of buildings around the Square.
The city of Jefferson is waiting for a massive injection of taxpayer money for these projects, similar to the windfall they inherited for the upcoming overpass.
The history of downtown Jefferson is the story of old, historic buildings being torn down.
The First Methodist Church in the 200 block of East State Street met its fate in 1954. The Baptist Church a block west of the square was razed in 1980.
The Jefferson Creamery was destroyed, as well as the Jefferson Bottling Company. Cliff and Millie's furniture store was destroyed by fire, as were several other local businesses.
It is not realistic to expect older, less-efficient buildings to be upgraded. The real question is how long before the entire downtown district is abandoned?
I looked at the valuations of some of the downtown businesses and they are extraordinarily low. If the downtown businesses are having a difficult time making it now (some not making it), then spending big bucks on rehabbing won't help the bottom-line. That will just increase their occupancy costs.
In my opinion, retail shopping in Jefferson is dying, if not dead. Spending millions of dollars to rehab or to build new won't help. Wal-Mart in Boone will be cheaper. Ames and Des Moines are close enough for big purchases.
Jefferson is turning into a bedroom community. The bad thing ... it's a bedroom community in the middle of nowhere.
I don't know who you are, anon, but you should adopt a screen name. That last post was dead on.
I couldn't have said it better. The town of Manning, Iowa is smaller than Jefferson, but experiencing the same difficulties attracting businesses. What they have done recently is accept their future as a bedroom community (also in the middle of nowhere) and offer massive tax abatements and other financial incentives, hoping to attract commuters.
The thinking is that, as the community grows along those lines, small businesses will once again begin to take root.
Jefferson wrote their own eulogy years ago when they missed multiple opportunities for future growth. They have already been documented here in previous blog postings.
Perhaps they should look in this direction.
Jefferson a bedroom community? 40 miles from Ames. 65 miles from Des Moines. Either one is a long, long commute 5 days a week. If U.S. 30 was expanded to a divided 4-lane from Jefferson to Ogden, perhaps a daily drive to Ames wouldn't be so bad. There are a few Jeffersonians that make that drive. With gasoline having hit about $4.50 a gallon not so long ago, such commutes are a financial risk. Perhaps all-electric vehicles may help some day.
A person is willing to live in a bedroom community for a variety of reasons. Perhaps property taxes are lower (unincorporated communites). Perhaps most of the homes are newer and filled with college educated couples with school-aged children. You move to a bedroom community looking for others just like you.
It's still a long shot to think that Jefferson can re-define itself as an attractive bedroom community. A lot of buildings and houses need torn down and properties need cleaned up. It need to be made attractive to young college educated folks because they are incredibly optimistic people.
Jefferson may not have a choice. The current course is taking it to a ghost town. You might be right, Rick, Jefferson should try to be a bedroom community or face a future as nothing but farm land. Jefferson is about 6 square miles. At 640 acres per square mile, Jefferson occupies about 3,800 acres. That's a good sized farm, which means a whole lot of potential federal farm subidies. I'm guessing that most local farmers hope that Jefferson just disappears.
We have until December 21 to find out if anybody shows any interest in taking over the deed to the Last Draw Saloon. It's really hard to imagine that happening.
I wish that the engineer's report was made public. If I were interested in owning that property, I would insist on seeing it, as there may be other means of renovation which would not be as expensive as the proposal put forth by Bob Shwarzkopf. His idea sounds like a very extensive plan.
Maybe all of the business owners currently losing money around the square should follow suit and donate their buildings to the city. They could then offer to lease them back.
Does anyone have any idea exactly how many of Jefferson's current standing buildings were erected or renovated without taxpayer assistance? It seems to me that these guys just go business as usual until they have a major issue, and then expect somebody else to foot the bill.
These local business owners are not broke. They have plenty of funds saved back. They are so cheap that they won't part with a nickle. That is also why local restaurants can't make it.
Those local business people you refer to have all bailed on Jefferson. They will take their money and run. They expect their kids to pay for fixing up things the way they lft them.
They are going to get a $13 million overpass but can't afford to paint their storefronts. Unbelievable.
$13,000,000 bucks is chump change. This crap is all about the railroad, period. Do you think that they will come in and hire 10,000 Jefferson residents to lay track? No.They will bring in the Chinese, who have worked out so well in the past. Why do you think the Peony Restaurant is already in place? How do you explain that only Chinese is spoken at Wet Goods and Larry's after 11:45 PM? Just to make it fair, Chinese is spoken at the Elks Lodge whenever you walk in there. That's what I have been told. The Mexicans from Perry are pissed off, because the railroad makes them fill out their apps in Chinese, and only 4 in 5 makes the cut.
I challenge anyone to name a building other than a private home and larger than a gas station built in Jefferson without taxpayer subsidies in the past 20 years.
What year was the Northrup King place built?
About 1985. Probably just outside the 20 year window.
When did Fareway go to North Elm and the Coop build their Niichi(?)soy plant? When was the Dairy Queen built?
Have their been any cultural or recreational additions since the bike trail, and when was that built?
Jefferson Automotive/Durbin Auto across from Pamida is new circa 2000.
Lee Horbach put up a new State Farm office (although not very large) just on the SE corner of Fareways lot. The Super 8 also isnt 20 years old. Hamilton Redi Mix has a new shop and office as well as plant setup in the last 10 years. American concretes building is less than 20 as well.
I stand corrected on my previous post. Apparently there has been a smattering of buildings that have gone up in the last generation. Not a lot to show for an entire generation, but some construction, none the less.
Don't forget the construction of Jefferson's current water tower, which was built about 25 years ago.
Iona I say the water tower with taxpayer dollars just as was the water treatment facility and new city shed which went online around 1994
All of those things were built only with the help of outside taxpayer subsidies. Even the only grocery store, Fareway, was constructed only after generous taxpayer subsidies were offered it.
You might want to check on some of those other places and see if taxpayer money was involved in any of them.
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