Groups ask Charles City Council for help saving old depot

By Bob Steenson, bsteenson@charlescitypress.com

Time is running out for folks who want to save the Milwaukee Road Railroad depot in Charles City, and project promoters made a pitch this week for the Charles City Council to get behind the project with at least public support, and preferably financial help as well.

Depot owner Canadian Pacific Railway has been threatening to raze the unused but historic 1912 structure for several years because of liability concerns with its location on railroad property along the tracks between 13th Avenue and Lawler Street.

Mayor Dean Andrews said he was recently contacted by the Canadian Pacific Railway.

“They need to see some action on moving the depot off their property, or they are going to schedule the building for demolition,” Andrews wrote in his Community Notes column in Tuesday’s Press.

The people who want to save the depot have come up with a plan to move it a couple of blocks south, and agree the building is in good enough condition to move, but the relocation pricetag is around $300,000.

About $170,000 to $183,000 has been raised, pledged or promised so far, including $25,000 from Canadian Pacific. The railroad has also said it would give the building to any group that would move it off railroad property.

Several people made presentations at the City Council meeting Monday night, starting with Charles City Development Director Mark Wicks, who said several groups have gotten behind the effort to save the depot.

“We’ve got representatives here from the Friends to Save the Depot, from the American Passenger Train History Museum. Community Revitalization has been involved, the Historic Preservation Commission has endorsed trying to save the depot, so it’s a true collaborative effort,” he said.

“This is one of our few remaining historic structures we have left downtown. If we allow it to be demolished that’s something we can never get back,” Wicks said.

Dennis White, a residential designer who is part of the Friends to Save the Depot group, said the building is one of the first in town that shows the influence of Midwest architecture that developed into the Prairie School architecture style.

“The Milwaukee Road engineering department was in Chicago at the same time all these new architects, Frank Lloyd Wright, William Purcell and those gentlemen were developing this new regional architecture. So we have a lot of things about this building that are really, really significant, historically just in itself,” White said.

The hope for several years has been to move the depot off the railroad property, onto nearby property that Bob Moen is donating to the American Passenger Train History Museum. Moen and others who are part of that museum project have already brought more than a dozen passenger train cars to that area which are being refurbished.

White said the relocated and renovated depot could serve as the entry point for that museum, as well as providing exhibit space and public meeting space.

An important aspect of the plan could be to tie in the depot and the passenger train museum with the Charley Western Recreational Trail in Charles City. The depot could provide publicly accessible restrooms, bike racks and parking for trail users, White said.

Bret Van Ausdall, with the American Passenger Train History Museum, said he realizes that finances are tight, so he wanted to look at what a relocated depot could do for the city, not just what it would cost.

“Hopefully you can see that this building can provide a lot of new uses, potentially even bring in some revenue to Charles City,” he said.

Van Ausdall said the whitewater park and the Charley Western trail are significant attractions in town, and he would especially like to see the trail loop completed and better amenities go along with it.

“Moving this building to this spot has a lot of synergy with the bike trail itself,” he said about the depot’s potential new location at the corner of 11th Street near North Grand Avenue.

If something develops with the Simply Essentials property and more space for that business is required, Main Street could potentially get curved over to meet 11th Street.

“If that’s the case, you have not only the trail head and the entrance to the museum, but also potentially a nice entrance from the north side of Charles City,” Van Ausdall said.

A more accessible and complete trail could draw more visitors to town, he said, and the passenger train museum with a refurbished depot could potentially draws tens of thousands of tourists.

Van Ausdall showed figured from other train museums in the Midwest, including one at Boone that draws 50,000 visitors a year, and one at the tiny town of Union, Illinois, population 580, that draws 75,000.

Van Ausdall estimated a train museum complex in Charles City could initially start attracting 5,000 visits a year, and Moen said that could grow to 25,000 a year.

Refurbishing the depot could potentially cost $850,000 or more, Van Ausdall said, but there could be significant grants available to help with that, and the timing would not be so critical once the depot is moved and saved.

Moen said, “One of our challenges is nobody wants to grant money for moving something. Everyone wants to grant money for bricks and mortar – everybody wants their name on a brick. In order to make this thing happen we’ve got to get the thing moved before we can even start renovating.”

Van Ausdall said the effort “needs the city to announce support for this project and encourage people and leaders in the community to come forward to donate more money, at least for this move, if not for the full renovation and restoration.”

“For this move to happen, to save this building, there has to be a decision made basically in the next month and a half,” he said.

“Can the city provide that gap, that $120,000 to $180,000 gap if we cannot come up with all that money?” Van Ausdall asked.

He said if the groups can assure the Candian Pacific Railway that the building would be moved in the spring, they would continue fundraising until then, so the needed contribution from the city would be less.

“Can the city move on that?” Van Ausdall asked. “Is that something they will do? Is this something that’s an added value?”

Council member Jerry Joerger said he liked the idea, but “unfortunately, the city’s not a cash cow. If you can get some more outside funding that would really be the trick.”

Van Ausdall said the groups had ideas for fundraisers earlier in the year, but like everything else that was “derailed by COVID.”

Moen said to the council members and mayor, “You probably know some of the key people in Charles City, and I think they’re waiting to see if the community’s really behind this. I think some of the heavy hitters are hanging back to see if everybody really wants to do this.”

City Administrator Steve Diers said the city has been talking for some time about connecting the ends of the trail, and about how Main Street could get redirected.

His said this could provide an opportunity to continue the trail, provide traffic control in that area of North Grand and Main Street, “and also clean up a part of town that doesn’t look so nice. I think that would be a nice addition.”

Mayor Andrews thanked the groups for being at the meeting.

“We’ll see where we can move forward,” he said.