Rusty’s Place in History
Published by Mark Von Nida on June 6th, 2008
Besides being the place for political gatherings over the last twenty years, Rusty’s had a special place in history. Robert Pogue’s store which housed the Indian Agency in 1819 was on that site. A brick wall from the original store still survives within the building. It is the wall to room on the left side as one enters through the front.
Excerpt for Edwardsville, An Illustrated History, By Ellen Nore and DickNorrish in 1996:
“… In 1817, Madison County officials had contracted for the building of the first of four official courthouses, tbis one a log structure long gone, which stood on the east side of Main Street now occupied by the former Lincoln School Building. In 1818, the State Legislature chartered the Bank of Edwardsville to recieve payment for sale of public lands. The presence of a flour mill assured a steady stream of business outside of Court days. According to a local account written in 1864, “the big store” in Edwardsville during the early days of statehood was kept by Robert Pogue, who offered readers of THE SPECTATOR goods ranging from Prime Green Coffee to Bed Cords and Ink Powder.”
Let’s hope any consideration of the property pays homage to it’s historical roots.
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June 6th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Rusty’s was “Cheers” complete with similar characters and stories.
I hope the temptation of receiving funds from the proposed TIF, doesn’t mean the building will be leveled for a strip mall.
June 6th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
Rusty’s certainly will be missed.
The TIF has been established and hopefully the City utilizes these incremental dollars to assist in finding a new tenant for the building. Vacant property of that size and in that area does not encourage new development in that area at all– which is why the TIF was needed in the first place.
Tearing down that building at this time would not make a lot of sense- not if you wanted TIF $. In a TIF, the base value of the Area is frozen- all taxing districts continue to see property taxes as they always have- any new development that occurs and the increase in taxes that occurs as a result of the new improvements goes into the City’s TIF fund. Those incremental dollars are what communities use to assist development.
Right now that building has a value of around $350K putting the EAV of the building around $120K. Thus, the EAV is frozen at $120K.
A TIF captures the increment- the increment is used for redevelopment purposes. Since the TIF was just established it effectively froze the base value at $120K- If you demolished the building you would still have a base value at $120K and be unable to take advantage of the TIF. You wouldn’t be able to take advantage of TIF until at least a $350K investment was made after demolition.
In the end it makes sense to renovate and update the building, not demolish it– at least from a TIF perspective. We’ll have to wait and see.