The former middle school property was once again the center of discussion by the Greene County School Board at their most recent meeting on January 20th.

Superintendent Tim Christensen said asbestos was being removed from the building and demolition bids for the attached gym were due back by February 11th. Developer Nate Adams previously pitched to the Board the idea to convert the three-story building into 25 apartments. However, one aspect he requested was to have the school district demolish the gym in order for him to have the project qualify for potential federal and state historic tax credits. 

Adams gave an update to the Greene County Development Corporation Board at their monthly meeting on January 12th that he is targeting this October to submit an application for the historical tax credits. He said this past July there was a bidding process, which Lang Construction was selected as the contractor. He then gave an update on the progress he’s made with the contractor.

“In December we completed a value engineering exercise with them and it ended up reducing the budget by approximately $1 million. There’s a remaining funding gap kind of taking into consideration all sources and uses of about $250,000. The project as a whole is somewhere around a $6 million project.”  

Adams mentioned having discussions with the City of Jefferson about a tax increment financing agreement, the Iowa Finance Authority about their Home Loan program, which could contribute about $1 million toward financing the project. 

School Board member Steve Fisher pointed out at their January 20th meeting an obstacle the gym presents if it were to stay as an independently operating facility.

“The infrastructure is not in place for the gym to maintain operation. You’d have to invest some additional infrastructure, and then you’ve got the operating costs on top after that. That’s the problem, I mean yeah, I really wish there were a way that that building (the gym) could survive but it doesn’t fit the plan, it doesn’t fit the budget.”

Board member Mike Dennhardt voiced a concern about getting a guarantee from Adams that he would do something with the school building, if they deed the property to him.

“If a guy does do it and tear down that gym and nothing is ever done with that, holy moly there’s going to be a lot of very, very mad people. That’s one of the biggest things that I’ve heard recently from the people about tearing that gym down.”      

The Board requested that Adams discuss his project with them during the February 18th meeting. Christensen noted that the public hearing has already been held concerning this topic and the Board just needs to make a final decision.