LaX store receives funds despite legal questions

LaCrosse was awarded $40,000 in economic aid from Whitman County to bring groceries back to town at Tuesday night’s meeting of the Blue Ribbon Advisory Task Committee.

Whitman County Rural Library District applied for the $40,000 grant from the county’s .09 economic development funding. The library wants to renovate space in the former LaCrosse Market building to relocate the town’s library from city hall.

Attached to the LaCrosse library project is a complete renovation of the market building to create space for a grocery, a chiropractor’s office, a coffee shop, a high school business incubator and more office space.

LaCrosse has been without a grocery store since Jerry Chastain closed the LaCrosse Market in February 2009.

The Blue Ribbon committee Tuesday also approved $30,000 to the Uniontown Community Development Authority to build an expansion and farming museum at the Dahmen Barn and another $30,000 to the city of Rosalia to replace bricks on the outside of the town’s community center.

Jerry Townsend with LaCrosse Community Pride said the lack of a grocer has created a “food desert” in western Whitman County.

The store proposal, he said, would create a new community center for residents of a vast area around LaCrosse. He noted residents of Hay, Hooper, Winona and even over to Washtucna have to travel vast distances to buy groceries.

“This is going to be part of a process of seeing that region grow again,” agreed Alex McGregor, who helped the group purchase the store building.

The market building is owned by LaCrosse Community Pride, a non-profit organization formed by citizens with the aim of returning groceries to LaCrosse.

The library would lease its space from the Community Pride group. The library is now in a 306-square-foot space in city hall.

However, state law states .09 grants can only be used to improve publicly owned buildings. LaCrosse Community Pride is a private non-profit.

After consulting with county Prosecutor Denis Tracy, Blue Ribbon chair Mitch Chandler said the committee could choose to award funding to LaCrosse contingent upon ownership of the building being transferred to a public agency.

Members of the Community Pride group petitioned the city last year for the formation of a public development authority, or PDA. Townsend said liability concerns from the city made the PDA option too costly.

Townsend said the group is set to meet next Friday, April 1, and will discuss options for putting the building under public ownership.

The group has had an architect design a remodel of the building. McGregor stressed the historic importance of the building, adding it would be stocked with historic LaCrosse-area memorabilia.

Blue Ribbon committee members Ron Wachter of Pullman and Dale Miller of Uniontown, though, wondered if the grocery would draw enough business to make it attractive to potential operators.

“You can have a beautiful building, but if there’s no one there to buy groceries, it’s going to go the way of so many other Whitman County grocery stores,” said Wachter.

Miller noted the Garfield PDA has had a hard time keeping operators in its community-owned cafe.

“It’s going to be hard to keep an operator in there. Just because of the fact that the number of farms around our towns has been dwindling,” said Miller.

Proponents of the LaCrosse project said high utility costs and health problems of the previous proprietor played a larger role in the closure than the lack of customer.

“I think what helps now is you have a group of people with a shared interest in seeing it succeed,” said McGregor.

Townsend added a potential operator toured the building site alongside area officials last Friday, March 18.

The Blue Ribbon committee was allotted $100,000 to award to local projects by county commissioners. The county received $443,087 in .09 funding in 2010.

The state returns Whitman County .09 percent of every sales tax dollar it collects from here. That money is to be used on projects that create business or jobs to spur the local economy.

Seven groups submitted project applications. Only LaCrosse, Rosalia and Uniontown were advanced by the committee after last week’s initial screening.

Uniontown will use its $30,000 to remodel the loafing shed behind the Dahmen Barn to make more space for more artisans and to build an agricultural museum.

Leslee Miller of the Uniontown Community Development Authority, said the barn has drawn in tourists from six countries and from all across the U.S. since being built in 2006.

Rosalia’s $30,000 award will be used to replace bricks which have been falling off the town community center. Council member Dan Brown said the center is used regularly for gatherings like craft fairs and banquets and brings outside traffic into town.

Brown said the city has tried saving money for the brickwork, but repair costs have increased faster than the city can put money away.

The Blue Ribbon committee’s vote goes forward to county commissioners for the final decision.