Keystone, the centerpiece

A few years back in another life I was "the Commish" chairman of the Red Willow County Board. On my daily trip into the courthouse I would glimpse to the left and sadly observe the then vacant old YMCA building. The electricity was disconnected, a few windows were broken, the paint was peeling from around windows and doors, the overgrown postage stamp-sized lawn was unkempt, and the whole place looked sad. It thrived only as a great pigeon hatchery! Built around 1926, about the same year as the courthouse, the Y had been sold after a wonderful new facility with ample parking had been built in the developing community around the then new high school. In my time, the Y building was still privately owned but the owner had obviously lost interest, quit paying property taxes and moved on.

What to do? I spoke with a variety of community leaders and the consensus seemed to be for the county to buy the tired but still structurally sound old building. Using off-season county equipment and labor we could tear it down and make a parking lot. The whole concept made me sad but the place was becoming a public nuisance and something needed to be done.

The parking lot was an attractive concept as I had little luck convincing those who worked in the courthouse to park away from the building and reserve the close in parking for taxpayers doing business inside! Obviously such a concept is a hard sell. Contemplate that idea next time you, a potential customer, try to find a parking spot about anywhere on the bricks. Try it in a pickup pulling a trailer!

Actually the commissioners had earlier muffed a chance for courthouse worker parking. The church across the street had a large graveled parking lot all of a half block walk from the courthouse. Church trustees had approached the county board about sharing the cost of hard surfacing the lot in exchange for parking privileges for the county. Church members park on Sunday and county employees Monday through Friday, a great marriage. Evidently the idea made too good sense and the commissioners turned thumbs down. A short time later, we commissioners were chagrined when the trustees returned to ask that trucks not be parked in their lot while drivers were being examined for CDL's. The argument made no sense to me when the engineer made the pitch that empty trucks caused more damage than loaded ones, but then it was their parking lot and the golden rule applied. "He who has the gold (tax exempt parking lot) makes the rule!"

Then a wonderful thing happened. A private company came to town, purchased the old YMCA building and paid the back taxes. Using some tax increment financing (that implies lost county and city tax receipts) and other money, from I know not where, they remodeled the sound old building into wonderful apartments. Problem solved; a minimum of tax money sacrificed and a well-run apartment complex now back on the tax roles. Still a parking problem but we'll ignore that.

Well, today, a block down the street from the courthouse we have another tired but "built like a brick outhouse" building desperately in search of a mission. At six stories, The Keystone Hotel dominates the skyline of McCook. Inside the first floor is open and spacious. A mezzanine reached by a grand curving staircase overlooks the great room. Walls are faced with what seems like an acre of marble. The whole place reeks of elegance. The huge kitchen and even larger dining room harkening back to the grandness of an earlier era. Memories! A whole history of this area is contained therein.

Again, what to do? A group is actively pushing to purchase the edifice from present owners and pour a huge amount of money into remodeling. Built to order will be space for a currently MCC-housed software development firm. That firm promises to expand and create at least a dozen-plus good-paying jobs and have signed a lease to affirm that intent. Half of the $4 million projected is promised to be paid by a $2 million grant from EDA, a division of the U. S. Department of Commerce that is interested in historic preservation of buildings plus job development. A large part of the remaining cost is to be repaid with sales tax receipts and tax increment financing with title going to the McCook Industrial Development Corp. Somewhere in there I also smell a little pork from one of our senators.

Plans for the building somewhere along the line included remodeling the top two floors for luxury apartments. I look to the old East Ward building to note the current demand in McCook for that type space. Other plans include a restaurant especially for people who work downtown, nice, but to my knowledge no entrepreneur has come forth with intentions to consummate that enterprise either. Then too, a whole floor could be developed to showcase developing small business, an incubator the current term. Nothing solid but hopefully "build it and they will come." On completion, the property promises to be worth $2 million. Hmm!

From what I see, the cash flow is a mite shaky but the Keystone project probably will be built unless the City Council intervenes in short order.

Additionally I am uneasy seeing so large a portion of our new, increased sales tax go to a single project, but after all the people of McCook voted to tax themselves (and all those doing business here but with no vote) to do industrial development, business expansion and job creation.

But then, maybe private money will appear, like it did for the old Y, and the Keystone will have new life, befitting its name, breathed back into it. Still doesn't solve a downtown parking problem.

That is the way I see it.