How do you sell a $1.1 million building? By word of mouth, of course.
That’s the situation for the National Teachers Hall of Fame’s home site at 1320 C of E Drive, anyway. In the two weeks since it was announced to be on the market, officials have yet to formally list the property for sale.
Board chairman Boyce Baumgardner said the board of directors is still interested in selling or leasing the 30,000 square foot building. The board has had a few contacts from interested parties, too. But so far, all those contacts have been made informally, and probably will be for the immediate future.
“Generally our board members are community members representing all aspects of our community,” Baumgardner said. “They’re aware of it, so we’re doing that part by word-of-mouth so far.”
So far, two prospects have been by to look at the building. There may be a third party interested as well, Baumgardner said, one from out of state that he learned of through Kent Heermann of the Regional Development Association of East-Central Kansas.
“The building shows very well,” Baumgardner said. “It’s in very good shape.”
Meanwhile, the hall is slowly emptying out. One of its tenants, Emporia State University’s Small Business Development Center, has already moved to Cremer Hall on campus. The Hall of Fame itself will probably leave within a week or so, Baumgardner said.
At that point, things will start moving over to its new temporary home, a 900-square-foot former television studio in Visser Hall. The studio has mostly been used for storage in recent years and is located on south of Visser’s atrium.
The layout for the new site is being designed by Harry Hart, who is responsible for much of the look and feel of the existing hall. In some ways, Hart said, the new spot is a pretty good display area. It’s already painted black and the overhead grid would be a great place to hang lights.
“It’ll look more like a museum, and if they spotlight it, it’ll look pretty neat,” Hart said. “But I doubt if we’re taking a quarter of the stuff.”
That is the rub. The new hall will still have the displays of the five newest members. It will still have pillars and plaques representing the other teachers in the hall of fame. But otherwise, it’s going to be a little tight. There’ll be some of the Bill Samuelson miniature displays, some of the memorabilia, some other information on corporate sponsors and scholarships given by the hall. But there isn’t room for everything.
Whatever doesn’t get put up at the new hall will stay at the old one, packed up and in storage.
A reopening date has not been set. Some careful coordination is going to be essential, Hart said.
“If you get somebody in here from some distant state and there’s ‘closed’ on the door, it’s not good PR,” he said.
The Hall of Fame was established in Emporia in 1989 to recognize outstanding teachers nationwide. It inducted its first members in 1992.
Directors made the decision to lease or sell the building after it lost Birch Telecom as a tenant. The Birch lease brought in $120,000 a year.
Either a sale or a long-term lease would be welcome, Baumgardner said.
“If we had the opportunity to lease long-term, it would be like an endowment for the Hall of Fame.”
Right now, the main thrust of the hall’s directors has been to get it more national exposure and more financial stability. The board hopes to eventually establish a $6 million endowment for the hall, which would give it a reliable income of about $300,000 a year.
Down the road, the building could still be professionally listed for sale if it becomes necessary, Baumgardner said.
“Right now, we’re pretty comfortable with the activity we have.”