The City of Jefferson currently owns five downtown buildings. 

City Administrator Mike Palmer says one of the buildings, the former Lawton Chiropractic building at 200 East State Street, has storefront glass installed and work continues on demolishing the interior.

“The idea is that Heartland Bank will be in that building. They’re goal is to be there (by) February 1st and have that occupied. So that’ll be a really nice building to have completed, at least that part of it. There is another bay attached to it that’ll be available.”

Palmer says for another building, the former Angie’s Tea Garden, the City plans to secure the roof and do asbestos abatement. Once those renovations are done, the building will be turned over to a private investment group called “Why Not Us.” The City also owns the former Air Temp building on the west side of the square, 205 North Wilson Avenue-behind Angie’s Tea Garden-and the former Pizza Ranch building. Palmer describes what they are planning for those buildings.

“We get them in a condition where they are ready to move in. Our goal is to try and find users for them. We get people inquiring quite a bit but we want these buildings to have a very definite end use, not just a wish list. We ask people to come in and they’ll go over with (Building Official) Nick (Sorensen) what their business plan is, their proforma, (and) how many employees they’re going to have. So we want a good long-term user when someone approaches the city.”

The City Council previously approved using up to $150,000 per building, per year of tax increment financing (TIF) funds to make the necessary improvements.