The Jefferson Matters: Main Street board and Greene County Development Corporation is calling its first Empty Buildings Tour, held last Thursday and Saturday, a success.
Jefferson Matters board president Jamie Daubendiek reported at the open town hall meeting Monday evening that 73 people registered for the tour of seven vacant buildings in the Jefferson downtown district. “All in all, it turned out really good, and we got some good leads out of it. Time will tell with that,” he said.
Pictured at the Jefferson Matters: Main Street office at 110 W. Lincoln Way during the tour are (from left) Lynn Scarlett of the Nevada Chamber of Commerce, Deb McGinn and Carol Ahrenholtz of the Jefferson Matters board, Chris Henning of the Greene County Chamber, Randy Lebeck, Steve Cuddy, Kurt Phillips of the Boone Area Chamber of Commerce, and Ken Paxton of GCDC.
He thanked Jefferson Matters board member Deb McGinn for her work preparing the packets that were distributed to those on the tour.
Also at the town hall meeting, Jefferson city council member and GCDC board member Lisa Jaskey, when talking about housing, said the Empty Buildings Tour attracted developers very interested in renovating the second floor apartments in several of the downtown buildings.
Daubendiek also talked about the market study being conducted with assistance from Main Street Iowa. Data has been collected about consumer spending and downtown business owners have been interviewed about their perceptions. Consumer interviews are now being done online, and Daubendiek shared hard copies of the survey for those at the town hall meeting to fill out that evening. He said the study would cost $15,000 to have done, but it is being done at no charge through the Main Street program. Survey results will be available in late summer or early fall.
