In a last-minute effort to save a landmarked structure along the Fox River from being torn down, a group of Geneva residents is proposing the structure be turned into a visitor information center.
On Monday evening, the Geneva City Council is expected to vote on whether the limestone structure, formerly part of the Mill Race Inn, can be demolished. Last month, the city’s Historic Preservation Commission unanimously shot down a request by Dave Patzelt, the president of Geneva-based Shodeen Group, to demolish the structure.
Patzelt then appealed the decision, which is why the matter now goes to the full council for a vote.
But, before the meeting on Jan. 12, some Geneva residents have pulled together a pitch to save the landmark structure.
The structure in question was previously part of the Mill Race Inn restaurant, which operated from the 1930s until it shuttered in 2011.
Though perhaps most famously a part of the popular eatery, the building existed long before that. It first housed a blacksmith shop in the 1840s, but, before it became part of the longstanding Geneva restaurant, housed a number of other businesses too: a wagon manufacturing and blacksmithing shop, a cooperage and a carriage painting shop, for example.
But, after the former Mill Race Inn site was acquired by Geneva-based development company Shodeen Group, demolition of most of the property began in 2016. The 1840s-era limestone sections, at the time, were to be evaluated as to whether they could be considered a historic landmark or be incorporated within any future development of the property.
What remains of the limestone building — which was designated as a landmark in 2018 — weathered multiple requests by its owner to demolish it over the years, none of which ultimately came to fruition.
Then, in October, Patzelt again asked the city to demolish the structure, arguing that keeping the structure is no longer in the majority of the community’s best interest. The matter came to the city’s Historic Preservation Commission last month, and was again shot down.
The property is no longer owned by Shodeen itself, according to Patzelt, but by the Mill Race Land Company, LLC, though Shodeen Construction Company remains listed as the contractor on the original application for demolition from October.
Patzelt appealed to the City Council the day after the Preservation Commission determination was made. The council can now vote to uphold, amend or reverse entirely the commission’s decision, but a reversal or modification requires a two-thirds majority of the aldermen to vote for it. The vote must occur within 30 calendar days of an appeal being made.
So, in advance of Monday’s planned vote, a group of Geneva residents has come together in an attempt to stop the structure from being torn down — complete with an architectural model of what the blacksmith shop may have once looked like.
As a downpour carried on outside, around two dozen residents — including a few members of the Historic Preservation Commission and Geneva Ald. Mark Reinecke — gathered for a meeting on Thursday at the Comfort Inn & Suites in Geneva to talk about the proposal, and the fate of what was once the Alexander Brothers’ Blacksmith Shop.
With the architectural model of the Blacksmith Shop front and center in the meeting room, the residents listened to Alan Leahigh, a preservation advocate who lives in Geneva’s 1st Ward, where the structure is located. Leahigh is one of the residents behind the recent push to preserve the Blacksmith Shop.
Leahigh said that, because “unfortunately, (they) don’t have a time machine,” making a model was “the next best thing.”
The model itself was constructed by Craig Elliott, who also joined the resident meeting on Thursday. It was meant to represent what the Alexander Brothers’ Blacksmith Shop may have looked like in the 1840s. It features the shop itself, as well as the nearby mill race.
Also displayed at the meeting was a watercolor painting by Chuck Cassell of the old Blacksmith Shop. Leahigh said a conversation with Cassell was part of what prompted this recent effort to save the structure.
“The trouble is that everybody sees these ruins, these remnants, and they’re ugly,” Leahigh said at the meeting on Thursday. “Let’s get (rid of) the ugliness, and I think most people really agree with that, but people didn’t have much of a vision of what it might have looked like (in) the beginning.”
Thus, following some research into the structure’s history, the architectural model and the painting ultimately came about, Leahigh explained.
“We think this is a pretty good representation,” Leahigh said. “We’ve done measurements, so … the ratios are all correct and so forth.”
These efforts had been in progress before the most recent demolition request from Shodeen, Leahigh explained, but upon hearing about the request, the involved residents finished up the project for the public to see.
“The problem is that people don’t, all they see is the ruins there, and don’t see the possibilities of what it was and what it could be,” Leahigh said.
But, even if the council votes to keep the structure standing, Leahigh noted that there needs to be a vision for how it could be used.
His group’s suggestion? A visitor information center for the tri-cities: Geneva, St. Charles and Batavia.
Leahigh pointed to how such a project could serve those using the nearby Fox River trail, canoers and kayakers and other visitors to downtown Geneva.
He also pointed to how it could serve as a sort of bicentennial project in the coming years. James and Charity Herrington and their family, often considered the founders of Geneva, first arrived in the area in 1835, according to the city’s history.
How does such a project come to fruition? Leahigh, on Thursday, said that is “not (their) expertise” and that the expected costs are “a little out of (their) lane,” but said that “the city’s got to grab hold and do something” if the developer will not.
Patzelt, in an email to The Beacon-News, on Friday said that week was “the first that (he has) heard of” the visitor center idea. Pointing to previous requests from those in favor of preserving the structure for additional time to determine how it might be used, Patzelt said that no one “willing to rehabilitate, relocate, reuse, or repurpose materials … has come forward” in the years since.
As for the reuse of the building in general, Patzelt cited a 2022 estimate of $1.5 million to renovate and restore the structure, saying that there is “nobody that (Shodeen is) aware of who will fund paying to restore the structure and then pay to continue to maintain the structure.”
“It is unfortunate that the remnant structure is simply not (reusable),” Patzelt said in the email.
At Thursday’s meeting, some residents questioned whether the project would be feasible or desired by Shodeen, and discussed what could be done in advance of Monday’s meeting.
Reinecke, who represents the 5th Ward, suggested at the meeting that residents who are opposed to the structure being torn down should “keep (their) eye on” the fact that they do not want the structure torn down, and that whatever comes next can be negotiated in the future.
On Monday, the council is to decide whether to grant or deny the demolition request “upon consideration of the written record of the commission’s decision and the applicant’s appeal,” per the city.
“Monday’s special City Council meeting will be tightly managed to ensure due process is followed every step of the way,” Geneva Mayor Kevin Burns told The Beacon-News on Friday.
The City Council meeting will take place at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 12, at 109 James St. in Geneva.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
