The Iowa Economic Development Authority recently awarded several projects with a unique funding stream, of which one of those is located in Jefferson.

According to the IEDA, $2,486,897 of the Historic Preservation Tax Credit was given to the Jeffersonian project, where the former middle school is being converted into 25 rental units. Chris Deal is one of the lead developers and says after the initial study was done in 2019, with support from Greene County Development Corporation, of what could be done with the 1921 three-story building, getting through the historical tax credit process was one of the longest portions of getting the financials together. He talks about the sticking point was about the gym that was added on much later.

“Through a lot of those conversations, what originally we had understood in terms of the gymnasium kind of being a stand alone consideration, ended up not being the case. That added about three years to the project because we had at least stepped down through what that looks like if the gymnasium isn’t utilized by another local organization or for a third party to take that on.”  

Deal points out that the historic timeline got even more complicated as more entities were involved.

“Through a lot of conversations with our state historic office, the National Park Service, eventually it was determined that, ‘No, that gymnasium is important to the overall context, the overall historic fabric of the building.’ So with that the end result is that if the gymnasium is taken down, then the building doesn’t qualify for the historic tax credits, and those are a very, very important part of making the whole project feasible.” 

According to the IEDA, the Historic Preservation Tax Credit provides a state income tax that allows for rehabilitation of historic buildings, while also maintaining the architectural features of the structure. Deal anticipates having the project completed by June of 2026.