Back in mid June, a building owner in downtown Ottawa found out they had been awarded a $50,000 ‘Residential Opportunities On Main Street’, or ‘ROOMS’ grant. The grants are awarded through the state of Kansas to create residential units in the upper floors of downtown buildings. Thursday, the owner of that building, Britnie Batish, of Ottawa was presented the obligatory “big check”, in a ceremony in front of her building in downtown Ottawa that holds the Ice Cream House on the bottom floor.
The building is the historic Shepherd and McQuesten building at Second and Main, next to Haley Park. The plan is to add three one bedroom and one two bedroom loft apartments. A little history about the Shepherd McQuesten building. This building was built by l. W. Shepherd & B. C. McQuesten as a bank in 1870. It was the first location of Peoples National Bank, and originally had huge arched windows. Since that time a wide variety of businesses have been located in the building, most recently, jazzercise and now the Ice Cream House.
