T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY — Efforts to potentially market and sell the currently empty lot at the southwest intersection of First Street and Main, portions of which are owned by the city of Marshalltown, the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce and a private individual, were discussed during Monday night’s city council meeting.

At the tail end of Monday night’s meeting, the Marshalltown city council discussed the status of four “brownfield” properties downtown — two owned by the city, one by the Marshalltown Area Chamber of Commerce and one privately held — and the status of grants to help with hazard mitigation and redevelopment in the future.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) defines a brownfield as “a property (where) the expansion, redevelopment, or reuse of may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant, or contaminant.” City Administrator Joe Gaa said the city has two active grants, including a three-year communitywide assistance grant currently in year two with a $278,500 contract with Impact 7G and about $105,000 worth of work remaining to complete various phases.

The second is a regionally directed technical assistance grant targeting two downtown sites — the empty lots at the southwest intersections of Main and First streets and Main and Center streets — complete with a market analysis on the types of businesses or developments the community would most like to see. Gaa discussed the concept of retail “leakage” to other cities and how Marshalltown might use the spaces, although the Center and Main lot, at least for now, is set to become a community ice rink.

“The study shows that we could support a couple more in the miscellaneous (retail), a couple more in the general merchandise, and so the moral of that story for me is that there’s plenty of opportunity to use these sites downtown for retail and services, and then when they talk about services, they go to several things that we could have, several additions,” Gaa said. “Daycares, chiropractors, therapist positions and home health care services and legal services.”

Gaa then asked the council if they were prepared to start marketing the properties in conjunction with the Chamber in hopes of soliciting offers and selling them before opening the floor up to questions. Councilor Gary Thompson asked for clarification which of the properties the city would be in charge of marketing, and during a subsequent interview, Gaa explained that portions of the First and Main lot are actually separately owned by the city, the Chamber and the private owner, James Clark.

Fellow Councilor Mike Ladehoff shared his opinion in favor of trying to sell the properties.

“I definitely think we oughta be marketing these. We oughta have signage on them. If someone is coming through, they don’t even know if they’re for sale,” he said. “Guidance as far as who to get a hold of, that type of thing, would be a good first step (in) getting going with it.”

Mayor Joel Greer recalled recently reading “Your City is Sick” by Jeff Siegler, who was the keynote speaker at the Chamber’s annual banquet over the summer, and how the deterioration of centralized downtown shopping areas has negatively affected communities across the country.

“Cities that people now flock to like Paris still have that going on, but the urbanization back in the ’60s and ’70s where we built the malls and we had urban spread and we got too far away and everybody had to drive an automobile turned our cities into kind of a different personality,” Greer said. “It’s just a fascinating book.”

Although no official action was taken as it was only a discussion item, the council seemed to be in consensus on the idea of marketing the city properties, the Chamber marketing its property and having conversations with the private landowner on how they would like to proceed, and Gaa indicated that the plan was now to move forward doing so.

During the subsequent interview, Gaa also told the T-R that the ice rink would not affect the potential sale of the Center and Main parcel as the rink is a seasonal attraction and could be moved elsewhere if a private buyer purchased the lot.