A nonprofit group bent on saving the 116-year-old Loveland Feed & Grain building is hoping a two-day brainstorming session later this month will produce an idea of how best to restore it.
The three-story structure, now sagging and worn, rests just off a railroad line that runs through Loveland. It was saved from demolition last year by Loveland businessman Barry Floyd.
Floyd bought the building for $400,000 and said he would keep it to allow the nonprofit, Novo Restoration Inc., to buy the granary.
But Novo couldn’t come up with enough matching funds for a $200,000 grant from the State Historic Fund to purchase the property. So Novo and Floyd are forging a public-private partnership to turn the building into a viable, working local landmark, said Novo’s Erin McLaughlin.
“It’s his property, and he can do what he wants with it,” McLaughlin said Monday. “But he’s expressed an interest in helping us rehab the building.”
Novo is getting at least 50 architects, planners, builders, real estate experts, preservationists and residents together for an all-day planning session May 11 and for the morning of May 12. It’s hoped at least two or three possible uses for the Feed & Grain building will emerge, she said.
“It’s a brainstorming session,” McLaughlin said, “and we’re really interested in seeing what comes out of it.”
Possible uses already discussed include an arts or community center, a fresh market with restaurants and a future rail station.
The Feed & Grain building was built in 1891 to store and mill grain in the heavily farmed region around Loveland. A co- op of farmers bought the operation in 1968, but it went out of business in 2003 as agriculture waned in Larimer County.
A Kansas developer last year wanted to level the building to make way for apartments, but McLaughlin’s group launched a campaign to save it.
The Loveland City Council refused to issue a demolition permit for the building, which was designated a historic landmark.
Still, Novo couldn’t raise the matching funds in time to meet a deadline set by the State Historic Fund to release its $200,000 grant to buy the building, McLaughlin said.
The state agency is still interested in helping restore the granary, said spokeswoman Alyson McGee.
“It’s a unique resource to be rehabbed,” McGee said.
Staff writer Monte Whaley can be reached at 720-929-0907 or mwhaley@denverpost.com.
