Calkins Building developers have yet to find a user, and they are now urging the community to offer leads.
“Our goal is to preserve and redevelop the historic Calkins Building,” said developer Becky Barber.
Representing the Calkins Redevelopment partnership. based in Kansas City, Barber said her team finally received a legal description of the property in April. The updated survey lines include the Calkins Building and grounds along with a food storage building utilized by the Montezuma-Cortez Re-1 school district and the Johnson Memorial soccer field.
In January, Re-1 school officials approved the sale of the former schoolhouse and 6.65-acre property to the Missouri-based Calkins Redevelopment Corp. for $275,000. Six months later, the downtown building on First Street remains empty with boarded-up windows.
“The first goal in the redevelopment process is in identifying a use for the building that can support the redevelopment,” said Barber. “That process takes times.”
In a near hourlong meeting with The Cortez Journal this week, Barber said developers had identified two potential users for the space. Despite repeated inquiries, she refused to describe potential plans, adding that one user “probably wasn’t going to work out.”
“I feel very positive that we will get something done,” Barber said. “It’s just going to take some time.”
Asked when the sales contract would be finalized, Barber again declined to comment. She also refused to provide a copy of the pending agreement.
Re-1 officials have included the sale price as added revenue in its proposed 2015-16 budget. The district’s financial document also reveals a $25,000 line item for expenses incurred connected to the sell of the building.
The three-story 19,500 square-foot Calkins Building and surrounding property is valued at $154,280, according to county officials.
Swedish immigrant Peter Baxstrom constructed the Calkins Building in 1909. Named in honor of Dr. Royal W. Calkins, a local physician, the building served as the Cortez schoolhouse until 1947. Junior-high students attended the school through the mid-1960s.
The building underwent some renovation about a decade ago, but the effort was shelved in 2008 because of a lack of funding. Complete renovation efforts have been estimated to cost several million dollars.
tbaker@cortezjournal.com
