Local group pitches ideas on reusing historic ISP campus

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BY CHUCK VANDENBERG

PCC EDITOR

FORT MADISON - A study is officially underway to look at how to best repurpose the property of the historic former Iowa State Penitentiary.

Officials with ISP have held three tours over the past 18 months to allow people a chance to see the retired maximum security prison. Money raised through the tours has helped pay for a study to look at what can be done with the campus.

According to Rebecca Bowker, a spokesperson for ISP, more than 8,200 people have toured the prison in that time. ISP officials have set another tour for Oct. 27. The first tour requested donations to the food pantry for entry, but the other two were charged admission.

Stacey Keller and Mark Sauer with Mead & Hunt Inc. out of Madison, Wis, were awarded the contract from the state to put together a proposal based on information gleaned from officials from the economic development sector, ISP officials, city and county officials and others involved in helping find a use for the campus located on Fort Madison's southeastern edge.

Wednesday morning, 13 people representing those entities met at Boulders Inn and Suites in Fort Madison to take part in a roundtable discussion surrounding the historic former prison. An afternoon session was also held with other community members and retired ISP staff.

Bowker said it's her hope the report would be in the hands of Iowa officials by October and talks would be underway with the state for the use of the campus prior to the end of the year. She said the state is spending about $30,000 a month in utilities and sewer charges currently on the old facility.

Keller, the project manager and and an historic architect with the Mead & Hunt, said most of the main buildings on the property range from fair to very good condition and the hurdles that are in the way are nothing that would prevent rehab efforts.

Rick Kready, Vice President of Operations for Pioneer Group and a consultant for Mead & Hunt, also has a position with Historic Preservation Partners, a group that has rehabbed historic structures across the nation. Kready, Sauer and Keller all toured the grounds with Bowker and said there is certainly work to be done, but Kready said nothing should scare the group.

"What we saw in there really is kinda normal stuff," Kready said. "You got the lead paint and the asbestos, but believe me, that's not a big thing - it's not scary anymore."

Kready said he's taken on bigger projects with bigger hurdles than the prison has in front of it. He said tax credits are available for certain buildings on the property, but not all of them, so he said he was recommending the prison campus be nominated as an historical district so all the facilities would be eligible for state and federal tax credits and incentives.

He told the group about a large historical veteran's administration facility in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, just outside of Kansas City, that he was part of rehabilitating and now is an award-winning project.

Bowker said the demographics of such a project would be different in Fort Madison, because the city doesn't have the metro support to draw from that the VA project had.

Kready said it takes some cold calling and digging, but developers and tenants can be found for most projects.

Sauer said the campus encompasses about 80 acres, which is similar to DuPont's or Pinnacle's property, so manufacturing interests could be a way to market the property. He also said southeast Iowa has a moderate to low-income housing shortage and housing could also be a consideration.

Others in attendance included Tim Gobble of Fort Madison Partners; Joe Steil and Dennis Fraise with Lee County Economic Development Group; Bryan Bross, a physical engineer with Klingner Associates of Burlington; Tracey Lamm of Southeast Iowa Regional Planning; Don Weiss of Southeastern Community College; Kirk Brandenburger of Keokuk Area Convention and Tourism; and Chelsey Lerud of Greater Burlington Partnership.

Steil said he could envision a "city within a city' where retail, housing, professional services and other unique entities come together to take advantage of the history of the buildings creating a tourist area similar to villages in other Iowa cities.

"Most importantly, and I don't know if your study goes this far, but tell us how this compliments Fort Madison and the region so it becomes that destination point and had that blend of different cultures of things people might be looking for," he said. "A little city within a city."

Fraise said Fort Madison's downtown and the former Sheaffer Pen building should all be a part of the research process to create a district mentality. Fraise even suggested an escape room be a part of larger corporate retreat that would be attractive to corporations all over the country, especially considering the grounds it's built upon.

"It's just more arrows in the quiver," Fraise said. "I think our challenge is here is that there's no shortage of really great ideas, but it's going to be honing those down to that handful we can concentrate on. You could have this conversation ad nauseum. At some point you have to be able to focus on something."

Gobble said a lot of the conversations are regurgitations of ideas that people have been talking about for years.

Bross talked about a project in Burlington where the hospital was going to raze it's former practice building downtown, but offered that money to private investors to repurpose the building and then grant money and investments were secured to rehab the building which is now full of tenants. But many of those tenants such as professional services and retail were already operating in the city.

Bowker said the city would need to be careful to not draw business from downtown into a new vision out there and then hurt the downtown.

Weiss brought up a facility in Fairfield, which is used as a co-op facility in a former turn-of-the-century law office, where meeting space and office space and services are available for monthly rental.

"I really like the idea of multi-use facility that includes residential, convention, hotel, recreation, parks and hiking trails," he said. "I think it's a unique opportunity that you're not going to find anywhere else, and I really think we need to capitalize on the uniqueness of that."

Other ideas that were talked about included incubator facilities, boutique hotels, niche businesses, mental health facilities, area jail overflow, and restaurants.

Bross said whichever way the study goes, the state is going to want to see a pretty defined vision for the project.

"They're going to want to see a plan. They're gonna want to see the vision and then make a decision to follow the direction we want to go," Bross said.

Keller said the three-day meetings are meant to generate three good ideas to present to the state. She said the report will then be turned over to the state's Department of Administration for consideration by different areas of the government that could lend support to the ideas.

Gobble said he envisioned a campus with niche shops, specialized rooms, with lower level retail and the upper story apartments..

Fraise said he didn't think the area is capable of attracting a large scale manufacturer, so the smaller scale repurposing of the campus was probably a more workable plan.

"Whatever we do has to mesh really well," Fraise said. "It has to be a cohesive plan that makes sense so we don't have something over here that's a detriment to all things over there. It's so unique that we could almost build a brand around this asset."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Economic Development, fort madison, historical, Iowa State Prison, ISP, Mead&Hunt, Pen City Current, rehabilitation

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