The looming factory building behind Saucy Dog’s Barbeque in downtown Jonesville, built to be the J.J. Deal and Sons Carriage Factory before becoming the Kiddie Brush & Toy Company — making Holly Hobbie and Barbie dolls until 1972 — is now being redeveloped into an apartment complex for low-income families and senior citizens. This is thanks to a redevelopment initiative led by Peter Jobson of Excel Sterling Realty Group. Jonesville City Manager Jeff Gray expects the success of the $6 million project to prompt redevelopers to consider other buildings in Jonesville for redevelopment.
“There’s been pretty tremendous progress there, there were some later building editions that have been demolished, and they’ve removed most of the old pavement on the property,” Jonesville City Manager Jeff Gray said. “They’ve done environmental clearing on the inside to clear lead and asbestos. They’re doing roof work now, and there’s been tremendous progress over the summer.”
To make the project feasible, the city of Jonesville entered in a public-private partnership with Jobson and helped acquire federal historic tax credits for the building, which was also listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2012.
“This one had a pretty complicated mix of incentives, and the developer has kept at it for several years, it’s certainly a partnership of the city, the state, and the developer,” Gray said. “It requires all groups to be motivated to work together to make it happen. It’s happening because people have been committed to the project for a lot of years. The original applications were under way before my time here.”
According to Jobson, the “Heritage Lane” complex will feature 44 apartment units, some loft units, a library, business center, community room, and classrooms to “offer residence enrichment classes depending on their needs.” This isn’t the first historic building Excel Realty has refurbished, and it won’t be the last — Jobson is currently working on various other redevelopment projects in Michigan, and is preparing to build a senior home in downtown Hillsdale.
Rent rates are currently unavailable, Jobson said, but “will be very affordable for qualifying moderate income applicants.”
The building, built by J.J. Deal in 1893, began producing Deal automobiles in 1905 until the company closed its doors in 1915. Only two Deal automobiles are left in the United States, one of which is on display in the Jonesville City Hall.
The Kiddie Brush & Toy Company moved into the empty building in 1924, making children’s toys until 1972, when the J.R. Headers Company moved in to manufacture automobile engine headers. Since the early 2000s, however, the building has remained vacant.
The redevelopment is slated to be finished in June 2016, and Gray believes that the success of the project will draw more developers to Jonesville to repurpose old buildings.
“There’s another privately owned building in front of the Kiddie Brush, we’ve worked with the property over there and we hosted a walk-through for redevelopers to look at that,” Gray said. “Some of the feedback we got during that walk-through was that the Kiddie Brush had been approved but developers wanted to see that that project was going to happen before they started. So hopefully some other things will follow.”
