City looking at land for parking, senior center – The Herald

September 16, 2021 Kate

HUNTINGBURG — The city is looking to buy a property to create more public parking and pursue another property for a future senior center.

At Tuesday evening’s Huntingburg Common Council meeting, the council agreed to offer $79,950 for the property at 407 N. Jackson Street; that is the average of two appraisals.

If the city does purchase the property, the building on the site will be torn down to convert the property into parking, Mayor Steve Schwinghamer explained Wednesday morning. Huntingburg already owns the property between City Hall’s parking lot and the Jackson Street property.

“Both those lots will be made into a parking lot and tied in with the city parking lot,” he said. “So we’ll have more parking for our downtown shoppers, our residents and visitors.”

The money for the purchase will come from the city’s Economic Development Income Tax fund.

Council members also gave Schwinghamer permission to look into purchasing land behind the former St. Joseph Hospital building. The area includes a buillding and two acres of land, and would ultimately be made into a senior center. The land is near the Lofts at St. Joseph’s senior housing facility.

Last month, the council approved getting two appraisals for the property, a step that, by law, must be taken before any kind of purchase options can happen.

“What we now have is a resolution that shows an interest in purchasing the property,” Schwinghamer said Wednesday. “This gives me a guideline that I can now proceed to kind of do some negotiations, and see what we can come up with as far as in the purchase of that particular building. Once we have both appraisals back, then we can once again make some kind of an offer to them to actually purchase the building.”

A new senior center was one of the nine projects included in the Stellar Community plans. However, money and timing delayed the completion of the project.