Hall of Fame land purchase
By
Mike Kroll
Remember when the National Railroad Hall of Fame was planning
on building their facility near the East Main Street exit of I-74? Well that
plan included not only the donation of Kiwanis Park land by the city necessitating
the relocation of the equestrians to Lake Storey but also the purchase of three
lots from David Simpson adjacent to the Holiday Inn Express. The NRRHoF paid
for options to purchase the three lots for a total of $330,000 and earlier this
month they exercised those options.
According to Julie King, executive director of the NRRHoF,
purchase of these lots does not signal another change in the organization's
building plans. ÒWe remain committed to a downtown Galesburg location but this
simply represented a very good business decision for us. We get to leverage
some state grant funds that would have otherwise been lost soon to purchase
land appraised at $385,000 for only $222,000 after the grant is applied.
Nothing forced us to exercise the option but our board just really liked the
math. We expect this to be an excellent investment.Ó
ÒWe are very pleased with the wonderful level of cooperation
we have received by city officials and downtown businesses but we remain in our
research and planning phase. Right now we, in conjunction with Campbell &
Company, are developing our fund raising plan with a focus on identifying
prospects. This is a tedious and time-consuming process as we develop a plan
but it is so important that we get this right before taking the next step.Ó
King was reluctant to predict exactly when her group will
actually begin actively fund raising or start working out particulars with
their design consultant BRC. She did say that it would 2009 at the earliest
before the group would be prepared to commence the next public step in bringing
the Hall of Fame to fruition.
060508