The final corner building on the downtown square in Jefferson is going to house a new business.

Tim Heisterkamp is the owner of Journey Financial and has been operating in an over 500 square foot space at Home State Bank since 1998. He tells Raccoon Valley Radio that the business has since grown to three additional employees and he recently purchased the former Homestead Coffee and Bakery building at the corner of East Lincoln Way and South Chestnut Street. He explains that the bigger building not only allows employees to have nicer offices and a conference room, but he feels it gives him the space for one important aspect.

“But more than anything we really want to have an education room where we can host small seminars that would hold maybe up to 40 or 50 people at a time, where we can do education events. And so, that’s the main reason why I wanted that building.”   

City Administrator Scott Peterson says the City Council approved a couple of grants to help with the interior and exterior repairs of the building. He shares his thoughts on having the final corner staple structure of the downtown square in capable hands before it got to the point of demolition.

“Just knowing that this is occurring, like you say to really the last kind of big anchor building in the downtown area, and this would be addressed. I think the community should be very, very proud of the work that’s been done in the downtown area. You look around the square and feel very, very confident (and) very excited about this and excited about the future knowing that the structures are all very, very stable and are going to be here for decades to come.”     

Heisterkamp points out work on the interior will start on July 8th, and there will also be work to remove the east facing mural that is structural unsound and replace with windows and brick, as well as a new storefront to restore back to the historical look of when it was built in the 1890s.