Recently, the City of Grant City was denied an emergency CDBG Grant for demolishing the five buildings on the Grant City Square the city says are unsafe – the two buildings on the southwest corner of the Square, the Dogman’s building on the south side of the Square, the Masonic Lodge on the east side, and the State Farm building on the northwest corner. On Wednesday, the city held a special meeting with commissioners Reggie Nonneman and Tyler Paxson, Amber Monticue of the Worth County Progress Organization, Tyler Steele, whose building adjoins two of the buildings targeted for demolition, Economic Developer Kevin Fisher, and Kim Mildward of the Northwest Missouri Regional Council. None of them offered any easy answers either.
Commissioner Nonneman said that the county is in the same
boat as everyone else with rising costs. He said that while they can help with
a few things, they can’t help with everything. “We’re hauling our own gravel
this year,” he said. Monticue said that while the Progress Organization has
saved up some money over the years from the rental of the Dollar General
building, they have to have a nest egg in case issues develop with their
building.
The estimated price tag for all five buildings is $933,000.
The city could apply for a regular CDBG grant in April, but the ceiling for
that is $300,000, and there would have to be engineering, surveys, and other
extra costs along with a local match, which could be in-kind labor. The city
could apply for it again once the first $300,000 is spent, but that would risk
future projects costing more due to inflation.
The other complication is, if the city is able to come up
with the resources and tear down the buildings, the risk is that adjacent
buildings would be affected and the city would have to start the process all
over again five or ten years down the road. “You can’t make a plan without
considering the ripple effect,” said Monticue. Steele said that once the two
buildings south of him come down, he would have to spend tens of thousands of
dollars to fix up his building, especially since the south side of his building
was never meant to be exposed to the elements. When the Phillips building
pushed into the Hole in the Wall, it affected his building as well. “I’ve spent
countless hours on this figuring out costs and hauling off rubble,” said
Steele. “Right now, I can’t access the south side of my building to maintain
it. If I were to sell it, it would have zero value.”
Similarly, if the Masonic Building on the east side comes
down, it could affect Rick Frese’s building as well as the Grant City
Apartments building. Residents there have already expressed concern about the
rubble falling from that building. If what is left of the Dogman’s building
comes down, it could affect either the Health Department building and/or the
former Andrews Hardware building.
One possible solution for the city would be to get a zero
interest loan from Mo-KAN to demolish the two buildings on the southwest corner
of the Square. It would not be subject to voter approval. But that would leave
the other three buildings. And the city would have to see if there is money in
the budget to repay such loans.
Nonneman said that over the years, everybody’s margins kept
getting smaller and smaller until they could no longer afford to maintain their
buildings. “There are no hardware stores anymore because of Amazon,” he said.
There was no action taken at Monday’s meeting. The city will
revisit the issue at their regular meeting in February.
No comments:
Post a Comment