Yesterday, June 12th, Lieutenant Governor and Commerce Secretary, David Toland, announced five grant recipients will share $250,000 funding through the Residential Opportunities on Main Street, known as the Rooms Program. Five projects in designated Kansas Main Street communities have been awarded $50,000 each to create a total of 29 new residential units in the upper floors of downtown buildings. One of those is in Downtown Ottawa. The historic Shepherd and McQuesten Building at Second and Main, next to Haley Park, will add three one bedroom and one two bedroom loft apartments. The building’s downstairs currently houses the Ice Cream House. The grant program is a continued effort by the State of Kansas to invest in downtown areas of smaller communities.
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 Shop.
