EDGERTON — What started out as a food pantry is taking another step in its impressive evolution.
Now Edgerton Community Outreach is working to house homeless veterans while at the same time providing meeting space for the local VFW and restoring this city’s oldest commercial building.
The $2.1 million project at 210 W. Fulton St. is ambitious, as most of the building is uninhabitable and in dire straits.
About this time next year, the building, constructed in 1854 as a hotel, will have a new look and use both inside and out.
Six apartments — an efficiency, a one-bedroom and a two-bedroom apartment on each of the second and third floors — will be constructed along with the addition of an elevator.
Below the apartments will be 3,000 square feet of office and meeting space, while the exterior will take on a cleaner look but one that pays homage to its historical past.
The project has been a true community effort.
The city purchased the building for $100,000 and then sold the property to Edgerton Community Outreach for $1 and awarded the project a $400,000 tax incremental financing grant. Rock County and the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. have each kicked in $250,000, while an anonymous donor has gifted $100,000 to the project in addition to other smaller donations from the community.
“They’re solving a bunch of challenges,” said Sam Rikkers, deputy secretary and chief operations officer for WEDC. “I don’t know of a project with more community than this one. When you have an alignment of all these folks coming together, that’s what you need.”
[Adapted from: A home for veterans and another step for Edgerton Community Outreach November 13, 2022 Wisconsin State Journal]