Hillsdale County’s courthouse annex offices will move out of their building on Howell Street as soon as renovations are completed in the old Hillsdale Daily News building, which they purchased last year.
City Commissioner Ruth Brown thinks it will benefit Hillsdale to have the old Daily News building occupied again.
“That building has sat there for two years, empty,” she said, “Now it will be full, and it’s going to be a jewel.”
Some concerns have been raised about the move, and there is no current start date for the renovations.
“It’s nice that they’re renovating what was an empty building,” Zoning Administrator Alan Beeker said, “The old Daily News building is gorgeous, and it’s nice to see it being maintained… The problem is that leaves a building in the heart of downtown empty.”
Beeker said that without a developer or anyone “waiting in the wings” to purchase the old Annex Building, he has no idea what will become of it.
However, there is also much optimism about potential development in the building.
Mary Wolfram, Hillsdale’s Director of Economic Development, acknowledged that leaving an empty building downtown is unfortunate, but said there is already extensive discussion about potential development.
The Michigan Economic Development Corporation is funding a feasibility study on the courthouse annex building. This study, headed by Peter Allen & Associates of Ann Arbor, investigated the building and the area to make plans for possible development and analyzed its potential costs and returns.
Brown said the study brought up lots of potential ideas, including a kind of shared coworking space, a coffee bar, a restaurant, or a combination of those things.
“They want to get activity downtown, they want to get people walking around,” Brown said.
The study, she said, will be a great resource for the county to attract possible developers.
Wolfram said that the move shows other positive signs for Hillsdale economically.
“The fact that [the county government] bought that building, shows that they intend to have a long-term presence in Hillsdale Downtown,” Wolfram said, “They could be moving out of downtown, and that would be devastating.”
Wolfram said that the county employees’ presence in the downtown, eating and shopping, makes a big difference to Hillsdale’s economy.
“You notice it if there’s a federal holiday when the employees don’t have to come to work. All of a sudden there are all these empty parking spaces,” Wolfram said.
Because the courthouse offices cannot stop operating, the process of moving to a new building is complicated. The new building must be completely operational before the first building is vacated.
This is further complicated by the fact that the county plans to fund the renovations of the new building with money from the sale of the first building. Once the Annex building is sold, however, Brown said that renovations should not take more than a year.
Wolfram hopes that this could be an opportunity to bring the college and the town together.
“It could be a local business incubator, it could be a study spot for kids, it could be both at once,” she said. “I think there’s an opportunity here for some really great synergy.”