PHOTOS BY RUBY F. MCALLISTER The west and north sides of Traer’s T.H. Best building, located at the intersection of US 63 and Second Street, pictured on Friday, May 9. BOTTOM LEFT AND CENTER: Before & After. La Terraza Mexican Grill & Seafood recently expanded from its original location at 602 Second Street into the corner Best building (600 Second Street) after completing extensive renovations. BOTTOM RIGHT: The T.H. Best building adjacent to La Terraza’s original building as viewed from the south last Friday.

TRAER — The revival is here.

Two years ago this past January during a Traer City Council meeting, the “revival” of a set of Second Street businesses located east of US 63 was a hot topic of discussion among council members and Tama County Economic Development Executive Director Katherine Ollendieck. During the discussion, Ollendieck detailed her early-stage plans to help not only the owner of the Wind Up Lounge renovate and expand through various grants but also the owners of La Terraza Mexican Grill & Seafood, Carmelo Saldana and Maria Correa.

“We’re going to get something really amazing done on that corner,” Ollendieck told the council at the time. “And then we just keep rolling. We just pick the next set of buildings — where are we going to next?”

As of today, the Wind Up Lounge, unfortunately, is no longer in business, but La Terraza is going strong with the owners recently opening the doors to their long-awaited expansion into the adjacent T.H. Best building (600 Second Street) located on the corner of Hwy 63.

For much of the past 131 years, the brick Best building housed a grocery store, but in more recent years the grocery was replaced with banking services including MEMBERS1st Community Credit Union. In 2023, the credit union relocated down the block, transferring ownership of the decaying building to La Terraza.

In early spring of this year, La Terraza’s renovations on the corner building began in earnest including stabilization of the west and north sides that had been deteriorating onto the sidewalk and threatening the nearby highway.

The entire project proved to be an expensive undertaking, but Saldana told the newspaper last week, through interpreter Maria Fragoso, it was more than worth it in light of how welcoming the greater Traer community has been to them.

“He decided to remodel the building because of all the support he gets from the community and all the surrounding towns,” Fragoso said. “He really appreciates it.”

Before the expansion which doubled the restaurant’s seating capacity, Saldana said, customers often had to wait a long time for a table, especially on the weekends. There also wasn’t much space near the front entrance, with Saldana describing it as tight and narrow.

All told, the renovation cost nearly $250,000; a portion of the cost was covered by a Tama County Economic Development American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) grant as well as funding from MEMBERS1st.

A second grant mentioned by Ollendieck back in 2023 – an Iowa Economic Development Authority (IEDA) Community Catalyst Building Remediation Program grant that would have helped rehabilitate the second-story apartments – did not materialize, Saldana indicated.

“In the future, he’s planning to fix up the upstairs,” Fragoso said. “He also is planning to make the new (back) patio bigger, but that will be down the road due to finances. The plan is to make the patio just one patio that will run from corner to corner.”

For those interested in checking out the business’s expansion into the Best building, the restaurant is open seven days a week, including Monday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

In honor of La Terraza’s expansion, a history of the Best building written by Traer Historical Museum President George Kadrmas is also part of this week’s edition of the North Tama Telegraph.