Partnerships brings 145-year-old downtown Grinnell building fully back to life
March 20, 2025 — Much like other facets of life, buildings need to adapt to how society changes, says Craig Cooper, Grinnell resident and president and founder of Iowa Built Trailers.
“If building [owners] don’t learn to adapt, the building loses its usefulness and eventually becomes obsolete,” he says. “The trick is to adapt to provide current economic life before it deteriorates beyond repair.”
In the case of the Beyer building in downtown Grinnell, conditions had declined almost to the point of no return. Originally built in 1880 by banker Charles Beyer, the property at 815 Fourth Ave. (on the north side of the Fourth between Main and Broad) had been a City of Grinnell redevelopment priority for years.
A photo taken March 18 shows how the exterior of the Beyer building looks after renovations were completed.
Cooper and Dick Knapp ’76 purchased the building from the late Bob Hamilton and Rachel Bly ’93, assistant vice president for auxiliary services at the College, in January 2024 with the ambition to update commercial space on the first floor and add residential units on the second floor.
“I’d been tracking it for 5 years, and I always viewed it as unfeasible,” Knapp says. “But the availability of public funds obtained by the City of Grinnell grew large enough that it became economically feasible. Everything was in place except for someone to be the developer – and why not a Grinnell College history major – to put it all together and shepherd it through.”
In December, Knapp, Cooper, and the Grinnell Chamber of Commerce ambassadors celebrated the revitalization of the Beyer building with a ribbon cutting ceremony. Within the building, the Hamilton Lofts – named in honor of Bob Hamilton for his contributions to Grinnell – contain eight 1- or 2-bedroom units. On the first floor is an expanded office for Hope Family Counseling and retail space for the Spoiled Dogs Company.
“There are folks who are pleased to see that we didn’t tear down and move on with some other use like a parking lot,” Cooper says. “That group is pleased to see the building has new life and that for the next 40-50 years, it should be a productive, tax paying property in downtown Grinnell.”
From farm loans to retail
The building was first known as C.W.H. Beyer & Co., a real estate and farm loan business. The company eventually became partners with Citizens National Bank in 1919.
The building architects were Josselyn and Taylor of Cedar Rapids. The original structure used stone corner blocks, brick work panels above the windows, corbelled cornices, and the cast concrete name panel that stated BEYER. The C.W.H. company operated on the top floor, allowing various commercial businesses to move into the first floor.
Left photo: In this 1987 photo, More than a Shirt Shoppe occupies the first floor of the Beyer building with the upstarts boarded up. Right photo: A large group of Grinnell residents had their photo taken in 1929 in front of what was then known as C.W.H. Beyer & Co.
Businesses over the years ranged from jewelers, barbers, shoe clerks, to fancy goods. Some of these retail businesses brought renovations to the building to market their goods better. Stokes Drug Store installed large front windows to display their products more easily.
By the 2010s, the building had become vacant. In 2016, Preservation Iowa ranked the Beyer building as No. 6 on its list of Most Endangered Buildings. Hamilton led initial restoration efforts that year, including brick masonry repointing and upper-story window replacement.
A partnership to coordinate the broader partnership
As a history major at Grinnell, Knapp frequented the soda fountain at Cunningham Drug Store, right next door to the Beyer building. When Knapp was back in Grinnell for his 30th reunion in 2006, he contracted to purchase the vacant Cunningham’s and then renovated it, refurbishing its iconic, backlit pylon sign.
This turned out to be just the start of Knapp’s efforts to give back to the community. It led to six more downtown properties that he acquired, renovated, and re-tenanted to provide goods and services for the community and College. Those spaces now host Prairie Canary, Maria’s Fresh Mex in a restored historic gas station, urban loft apartments, specialty crafts and clothes boutiques, and College office space.
Knapp has also developed and renovated large apartment communities in metro Washington D.C. neighborhoods, and he founded Indelible Housing, a nonprofit engaged in the acquisition, renovation, and preservation of distressed Project Based Section 8 housing, maintaining housing availability for low-income families. Among Indelible Housing’s projects were renovations to the Center Street Apartments in Grinnell.
Beyer building owners Dick Knapp ’76, left, and Craig Cooper welcomed the Grinnell Chamber of Commerce ambassadors during a ribbon cutting ceremony in December.
In 2022, Knapp made a leading gift commitment to support the first academic building in downtown Grinnell. Plans continue to be discussed for the space that will be housed in a 100-year-old former auto garage just to the south of Renfrow Hall.
Cooper, who previously owned Bikes To You, has been involved in downtown building renovations for the past two decades. The skillsets of both men were instrumental to taking on the Beyer building refurbishment.
“This particular project was something quite honestly nobody wanted to do,” Cooper says. “The building needed substantial work. I would call it a heavy lift. I came to the conclusion I wasn’t going to do it on my own. Dick is well versed in structuring the financing of projects like this, using both public funds and his own equity. This was our first project together. I think our skill sets complement each other. He’s more of a paperwork and finance guy. I’m a hands-on, boots-on-the-ground kind of guy.”
The kitchen of one of the refurbished Hamilton Lofts is displayed prior to tenants moving in.
Like other downtown revitalization projects, the $2.2 million historic renovation project was a public-private partnership. The City of Grinnell was able to obtain $1.4 million of public funds: $884,000 from the American Rescue Plan, $150,000 from Regional 6 Resources Partners, along with $360,000 in City funds. Knapp obtained a $600,000 loan from Grinnell State Bank and invested $200,000 of equity.
“It truly takes a village for a project like this,” Knapp says, while thanking Austin and Rusty Jones for being the local lender. “Converting office space into residential space is enormously complex.”
Knapp and Cooper said the weak structural walls and the code requirement to run a fire sprinkler system throughout the building were the biggest construction complexities. Cooper served as construction manager while Black Electric was brought in to be the general contractor and Wertzberger Architects served as construction engineers.
Cooper wholeheartedly agreed the project took a broad array of people.
“The city of Grinnell, first and foremost, wanted to see this building saved,” he says. “That took some political lifting to get that piece done. Neighboring property owners were forgiving about putting up with noise, construction traffic, and an alley closing. This particular project was a communitywide effort. There’s a long list of people that had to help make it a reality.”
—by Jeremy Shapiro