Local Main Street organization Wabash Marketplace, Inc. (WMI) has taken ownership of two downtown properties in need of major renovations in the hopes that the previously prominent buildings can be restored.
WMI Executive Director Steve Downs told the Wabash City Board of Public Works and Safety on Thursday that the previous owner of 231-233 S. Wabash St. and 5 W. Canal, informally known as the Bedford and Bradley buildings, deeded the vacant lots to WMI on July 15.
This is the second time the two properties have changed owners in recent years.
California resident Julie Locke purchased the buildings from Jack and Marge Francis in 2014, but decided to sell the lots to WMI six months after the City hosted a public hearing to determine whether the buildings were structurally sound.
Downs said that he believes the Bradley building, which formerly housed the Bradley Drug Store, can be restored, but a lot of work and money will be needed to return the lot to its former condition.
The fate of the Bedford building, which sits on Wabash Street across from City Hall, remains uncertain, however, as Downs and other WMI employees have yet to clean out and inspect the lot since taking ownership last month.
“We’re going to do everything we can,” Downs said. “The (WMI) Board is behind this. I have my marching orders so we’ve got a lot of good projects. I look at that Bradley Building almost every day and if we can fix that up and restore it to its former grandeur, it’s going to be a wonderful addition to the downtown.”
Downs said that WMI is seeking a variety of funding sources, including $200,000 in grants from the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs (OCRA) and $250,000 in Stellar Communities façade reimbursement grants.
He plans to reconvert the properties into commercial retail and affordable housing space, unless a private investor becomes available.
“Unless I can find private investors to come in, Marketplace is going to be faced, I’m afraid, with looking at affordable housing because the government wants us all to support affordable housing and therefore will give us money to fix up the building for that purpose, but won’t just give us the money to fix up the buildings for other purposes,” Downs said.
The WMI Board of Directors voted this summer to allow the Main Street organization to facilitate affordable housing growth downtown.
City Building Commissioner John Stephens inspected the two properties in January at the request of the Board of Works after the Historical Preservation Commission threatened to issue a demolition by neglect ordinance if interior and exterior renovations did not begin immediately.
Stephens’ report claimed that both structures were repairable, but the City questioned the previous owner’s commitment to investing the right amount of money to make that happen.
Downs acknowledged that restoration will be costly and said that WMI is actively searching for funding.
“It’s not practical to spend this much money on a building like this,” he said. “We all acknowledge that, but that’s kind of what Marketplace does. We’re not always as practical as we need to be, but we want to save the buildings. We just find this to be an important mission.”