With more than $3 million in grants and donations and eight years in the rear view, the challenge now is to complete the second-story ballroom of The Elks in time for a fall 2026 opening.

That hinges significantly on a $104,926 grant through Iowa Economic Development, according to Darcy Swon, president of LIFT WC — Local Initiative for Transformation WC Inc. — the nonprofit that undertook the monumental task of rehabilitating the 1906 brick building at 713 Second St. in Webster City.

“That will give us, with what we already have in reserves, that will give us enough to complete the ballroom,” Swon said recently. “So, we have to wait before we can do anything.”

Not that things are at a standstill. On the main floor, Wildcat Distillery is feverishly completing its interior buildout at The Elks with the goal of a spring opening.

Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Kolleen Taylor

The ballroom upstairs at The Elks is ready for the finishing touches.

But upstairs in the ballroom that hosted many an iconic event for multiple generations, the studs are still exposed, awaiting wall finishing. The ceiling treatment is also not complete, though a rendering by Alissa Nelson, the commercial interior designer and Wildcat Distillery partner who designed Wildcat’s look, offers a glimpse of what to expect.

Like runners in a marathon, the LIFT board is winded from what initially looked like a $1.5 million or so project. In this latest leg of what turned out to be a whopper of a learning experience, the members find themselves cheering each other toward what will eventually be a stunning accomplishment.

Through it all, those members — Shannon Swon, Lindsay Henderson, John Hawkins, Jake Pulis, Zach Chizek and Swon — have doggedly met challenges since the building was first purchased by the City of Webster City in 2018 and then turned over to LIFT. In that beginning, Henderson, who was then the city’s Community Vitality director, recognized that the cost for the facade repairs on the masonry building could come from existing Community Development Block Grant funds.

“The Iowa Economic Development Authority has given us the directive to spend down some CDBG funds that we’ve had for some time,” Henderson said then. “Some of those funds are going to be revolving back in over the next five years. They no longer want us to do revolving loans; they would like it spent in their entirety.”

With those funds in hand, what followed was an intense journey focused on the rehabilitation — and use — of a historic building.

Daily Freeman-Journal photo by Kolleen Taylor

The north side of The Elks now sports an elevator which allows access to all three levels of the building. The north side also has a large parking area which will allow easy parking for large events.

The full 2018 purchase price of the building — $40,000 — hinged on the owner removing the building’s burgeoning content. Ultimately, he did not. That cut the price by $15,000 according to the agreement and left LIFT with three floors of what most people would define as junk. Thousands of pounds of stuff had to be removed before anything could be done.

What followed were long, sweaty days.

But in one of the many moments that made it all feel worthwhile, someone on a recent guided tour approached Swon and Hawkins and said, “Man, you guys haven’t cut any corners.”

In telling this, Swon rolled her eyes. “John looks at me and I look at him and we’re like, we have done every single thing we can to not, like, not overpay for something, but still have things look as nice as we possibly can.”

She continued, “We have a very tight budget. We’re a nonprofit. We don’t have money rolling in. You know, we still need donations. We’ll always be accepting donations because that building, as you know, is not just about renting out a facility, it’s about generating revenue to help us put money back into the community and other things. So, we’re always going to be looking for charitable gifts, and they’re all tax deductible and all of that.

“But yeah, we are really trying hard to pay tribute to the era of the building as financially responsibly as we can. And the bathrooms, when I was in there two weeks ago, stunning, but we didn’t pay a fortune for them; we just were smart in what we chose. So that’s kind of exciting.”

With so much already done, Swon said the whole board is looking forward to what’s ahead.

“So, it’s more of the finishing elements, the flooring and the bathrooms, the catering kitchen, building out the bar, building out the stage, the electrical wiring, the HVAC, bringing it on upstairs. That kind of thing. So, it won’t take long once we get going.”

With that in mind, Swon says fall is the target opening.

“So that’s why we’re thinking September,” she said. That hinges on news of the pending grant coming in March. “If we can get that timeline,” she said, “we should be good to go. But I’m not going to book anything for the building space until we know.”

Donations to LIFT WC are tax-deductible and can be made online at desmoinesfoundation.org/LiftWC or sent to Enhance Hamilton County Foundation, 501 Bank St., Webster City, IA 50595. Checks should be made out to LIFT WC.

View this article as it originally appeared in the Daily Freeman-Journal.