The downtown area of Rushville is about to see some new changes.
Monday afternoon, Mayor Mike Pavey signed on the dotted line to purchase the Phoenix Lodge.
“The building, which is located on Main Street, was built in the early 1900’s,” Pavey said. “There was a Mason’s Lodge there that burned and this was the replacement to the lodge. It has been home to a movie theater that had live productions, movies and other shows. The second floor is the Mason’s Lodge hall. The back was once Roy’s Alignment, and the side a furniture store and an antique dealer.”
There was an interest years ago to purchase the building to renovate the movie theater, but things fell through. Now we have been able to come to an agreement and purchase the building from the Masons who have shown interest in relocating.
The money for the building is not taxpayer money; instead, it is money that has been put back for a project that fell through years ago.
“The money that is being used for the purchase is Build Indiana money that dates back to when Frank O’Bannon was governor,” Pavey explained. “We were initially granted $2.7 million dollars through this fund of which we received $250,000 to start with preliminary plans. We did studies, architectural plans and a survey was done showing that Rush County wanted a community center. So, we drew architectural plans to where we were going to build a YMCA and then, when Mitch Daniels came in office, he said we would not receive the $2.7 million, but we could keep the $250,000. So this basically killed our project. We had a YMCA board when we started planning, but when we realized we couldn’t get the money, we maintained what money we had and only used it to pay a lease on the building Ivy Tech is in.”
Along with the purchase of the building, the building will immediately receive a new roof and some maintenance upgrades. Additional restoration efforts will come through grants.
“We are going to act on the best opportunity that we get first, and this is the best opportunity we have gotten. It is very consistent with the original initiate that the money was going to be used for. We are very excited for this opportunity. You can sit on funds, sit on funds and wait for it to marry to the exact perfect opportunity and that may not happen for years. We think we are in a position here where we have very clear needs and those needs, we need to address as soon as possible. In my opinion, this building is one that allows us to utilize the funds and invest it in something and move a project forward. The initiative in this case is higher education opportunities. We think this building offers a lot of other opportunities along with higher education. We view this building as an anchor to downtown. There is a lot of opportunity to fill a lot of gaps, a lot of opportunity to do a lot of very positive things by securing the building.”
Plans for the building are still in the works.
“In 12 months, we won’t have the building completely remodeled, but we anticipate in 12 months, we can have one side ready. We want everyone to realize this is a long term investment for the city, it’s not a quick turnaround,” Pavey stated.
"Along with a theater restoration, the city will look at the viability of moving City Hall to the second floor of that location to add additional space that is needed. We haven’t been willing to put a whole lot of effort into the planning process yet because we just now bought the building. Through several community surveys and the dream walk, we know what the community is requesting. We know they want additional education opportunities, coupled with more arts, culture events," Pavey said.
"We want to offer movies and plays in the building,” Pavey explained. “We want to be able to put on live productions, use it as a conference room and whatever else we need to use it for.”
Partners for Progress, a group formed several years ago to help give the community a voice, played an instrumental role in helping purchase the building.
"A Dream Walk was held about a year ago in the downtown district allowing citizens to give their ideas on what the empty building should become. The community showed the most interest in this building. They wanted something to happen here. We got a lot of good information from that walk that we will incorporate,” Pavey said. “Joining the groups together has been very successful.
"This is solely for the community. No one is benefiting from this except the community. It is the largest building downtown, there are no taxes paid on the building. It doesn’t gain or lose anything. We have made a big commitment and this aligns with making downtown better. Our hope is we can develop a place where higher education can hang its shingle; where it’s not tucked away. It will be a place it can be identified and recognized.”
“We want to be as transparent as we can, but everyone needs to understand there are areas that are not 100% worked out. We want to give the community exactly what they asked for. There is a lot of work and renovation that will have to be done, but we have plans for the building," Pavey added.
Along with the Mason building, residents will soon see additional improvements downtown. Several projects are near completion, one of which is a large mural that will be painted on the site where some buildings were recently torn down.