WeLead has accomplished many things in the past year, which will be reviewed during its annual meeting next week.
The meeting will be from 12 – 2 p.m. at the West Liberty Community Center and will also be the West Liberty Business Association’s quarterly meeting.
“But it will also be West Liberty’s state of the city event,” WeLead’s Executive Director Ken Brooks said.
West Liberty Mayor Ethan Anderson will present his State of the City address.
“Which is the first one in a very, very long time,” Brooks added.
The city always talks about what is going on in West Liberty during the quarterly business meetings, he said. He thought this would be a great time for Anderson to discuss what the city has accomplished and their vision for 2024.
The annual report from WeLead will also be presented during this meeting.
“Our financials will be part of the annual report that we’ll be sharing,” Brooks. “We will be going into some detail on projects that were completed this last year and we’ll be go into detail about some projects that are ongoing and some of the ones that we’ve applied for.”
WeLead applied for two grant opportunities through the Iowa Economic Development Authority’s Catalyst Grant program.
“West Liberty has been successful in the last two years in those,” Brooks said.
Frank Wagner and Emily Geertz received a catalyst grant for renovations to the building that has Liberty Public House and Edward Jones at 115 East Third Street.
“And the year before, we applied for their building next to Keele’s Law Firm where we have the recording studio,” Brooks said. “They’re finishing apartments up top.”
This year, Big Imprint applied for the catalyst grant, Brooks added. The proposal is to demolish the warehouse portion of the office building to make it more modern and fits the historical architecture there.
“That would expand the space and add a second story and an apartment there,” Brooks said.
The City of Atalissa also applied for a catalyst grant.
“This is the first grant opportunity that WeLead has pursued in Atalissa,” Brooks said. “It's the old Corner Tap building across from the fire station, most recently Momma’s Alibi Bar & Grill. The proposal is that essentially we gut that building. It’s in pretty unsafe conditions right now.”
The bar and grill downstairs would be redone to make it a family restaurant and two apartments would be built upstairs, he added.
Development
There are a couple of developments that began and a couple in the works.
“We’re certainly going to be featuring a lot of the community members that are working hard to grow West Liberty,” Brooks said.
Developer Travis Shield has a building going up across from Giri’s BP on North Columbus Street.
“They’ve got the second story (up) and the roof framed,” Brooks said.
The Buysse subdivision is starting to take shape by Rainbow and Maxson Drive with Jason Dumont as the developer there.
At 17 North Spencer Street, the building is being redone with two apartments upstairs and commercial space downstairs.
There is also a new apartment complex being built.
“We’ve got Deepak Giri and the apartment complex on Short Street that he’s adding to,” Brooks added. “And Brad Akers, I think that’s going to be called “The Meadows.”
In the business park, a local company purchased property there to build a warehouse and office for their construction business, Brooks said.
“And we’ve got a couple of projects that are early on but in the works,” he added.
A company on the edge of town is looking to expand so they asked to be voluntarily annexed in to the city, Brooks said.
Two years in
This will mark Brooks second year as director of WeLead.
“It has been a really fast two years,” he said. “I was excited to come in and serve the community coming up on two years ago and I’m even more excited to have the opportunity to continue doing so now.”
The West Liberty area is vibrant with people wanting to share their culture and interests, he added.
“It’s never a dull day around here so I cherish the opportunity to serve this community, “ Brooks said.