Walt Disney of the prairie

Monmouth businessman targets another downtown

Sunday, February 18, 2007

By JOHN R. PULLIAM

The Register-Mail

What does Aledo have in common with Galena and Walt Disney World? Monmouth businessman and developer John Kesinger hopes to make downtown Aledo a destination, using many ideas used at Walt Disney World, with a few borrowed from Galena.

Kesinger has a track record, buying and redoing a number of businesses in Monmouth's Market Alley area. Maple City Candy Company, 109 E. Broadway, was the starting point.

"Somehow we stumbled across this when we opened the candy store," Kesinger said of the Monmouth business. He said when he opened the business he did not intend to have it be anything other than a small candy store.

Kesinger said he opened Maple City Candy Co. because the candy shop where his son went closed down. Soon after opening the business 15 years ago, he noticed something interesting.

"It wasn't just kids coming in," Kesinger said. "Older people, they were coming here for entertainment. That's where the small town charm comes in."

What Kesinger hopes to do in Aledo is start with a plan, using entertainment to bring in shoppers and diners from a larger area.

"What would you give if you could step back in time for a few minutes to that candy store you remember?" Kesinger asked.

He said most baby boomers have such memories. He said he remembers a little candy store in Monmouth when he was a kid.

"I had a quarter in my hand and I had so many choices," he said. To his young mind, the candy counter was immense.

"Now, if you go there, it would seem so much smaller," he said. "What if you could re-create that just as great as you remember it? That's what we're trying to with the candy store" in Aledo.

Kesinger bought the former Button House Hotel in Aledo in 2002. He said he paid about $7,100 for the long-abandoned building, with the cost mostly being the back taxes.

"My plans there were to develop the whole building as we did here," he said of Monmouth. "Here it was a process over years. I kind of wanted to speed up the process."

Maple City Candy in Monmouth contains a candy store, an ice cream shop and a restaurant, Coconuts. The second and third floor are devoted to an eclectic mix of retail stores.

Kesinger said he received a warm reception in Aledo and was able to obtain a $75,000, low-interest tax increment financing loan.

"By 2005, I finished most of the first floor and opened a small candy store and ice cream shop," he said. In 2006, he submitted the plans for the second and third floor.

He said it was at about this time Aledo government officials and others expressed a desire to get involved.

"They pretty much came to me and said 'we're all for this project and we want to make sure it's done right.' And so did I," Kesinger said.

Kesinger said the traditional approach in small towns has been for a downtown organization to ask residents what type of businesses they want. He said a local entrepreneur may open that business, but that approach usually fails.

"Unfortunately, it's usually undercapitalized," he said, "and ends up failing within a year. ... I really think these small town downtowns can flourish, but they have to draw from outside the area."

Realizing a new business model was needed, Kesinger sat down with a group of local officials and a team was formed. Dana Frye of Country Bank worked as a mediator between Kesinger and the city, Kesinger said. Once it was decided what was financially feasible, ideas were given to an architect. Kesinger said the city stepped in with more financial assistance, in the form of TIF money.

"We even got the state of Illinois involved, DCEO, which is doing some loan guarantees. I think the most important thing that happened was we sat down and said 'you know, this is going to be over a $1 million project. We need some community involvement,'" Kesinger said.

A corporation consisting of 15 investors, half of them Aledo residents and half employees of Maple City Candy in Aledo, was formed. The resulting corporation, Button House Developers, will be the developers of the building, with Kesinger the tenant.

"I got employees of mine involved in it," Kesinger said. "They've got a stake in the new enterprise. I think it makes them work harder."

Button House Developers received a $471,427 TIF package of incentives, for the $800,000 project. The package includes reimbursement of up to $82,500 in real estate taxes and $88,927 in interest

"We're doing this with the hope we can make Aledo a destination point," Kesinger said. "We really think there's a future in Aledo and I think elsewhere. We really think downtown has a lot of charm."

Kesinger said Walt Disney tried to re-create the charm of his hometown of Marceline, Mo., with his Main streets at Disneyland and Disney World. It's an idea that has Kesinger thinking big things can happen in Monmouth, Aledo, and other downtowns in the small communities in this area.

"In downstate Illinois, we have exactly what Walt Disney was trying to re-create 50 years ago," he said. "Maybe it's a stretch that we can create small downtowns like that, but I think it's possible. It's going to take everybody working together to do that."

Kesinger said, much like Galena - famous for its downtown that has changed little since the town's lead mining days of the 1800s - Aledo still has many of its older buildings downtown.

"Galena has the rolling hills and it has the history. It has all those Victorian homes," Kesinger said. "Even those shops that were there in the '70s, those were the small town shops we remember as kids, but in our imagination, it was much grander. Look what happened to Galena. Look what happened to property values. That's why it takes people who actually live in the community. They'll take the risk."

He said bigger investors have now come to Galena, injecting even more money into the town.

"Aledo has got an incredible amount of charm," he added. "I could see it as a small Galena, although I hesitate to compare it to Galena because I think Aledo, as a small town on the prairie, has its own niche."

Kesinger said if his project leads to other revitalization next door and across the street, the town can reach the goals he has in mind.

"My goal is someday people from the Quad Cities will come and see these quaint stores and be captured in that whole atmosphere and maybe think they'd like to buy a house here," he said.

J.C. Taylor contributed to this story.