Bodywrx receives $250,000 state grant

   Bodywrx in Washington has accepted a $250,000 grant from the state of Iowa to remodel its second floor and turn it into two apartments. Bodywrx is one of 24 projects in Main Street Iowa communities to receive a grant from the state?s I-JOBS program.

    Main Street Washington director Amy Vetter said Bodywrx was chosen because it had already received a Main Street challenge grant earlier in the year. That grant was for $20,500 and was to remodel the façade of the building such as removing the metal siding and tuck-pointing the exposed bricks. The most recent grant of a quarter-million dollars will go toward gutting the second floor and converting it into a pair of two-bedroom flats.

    Teri Hartzler, who owns the business and the building with her husband Drew, said the second story has not been used since the 1950s. She said there is not even plumbing or electricity upstairs. In fact, the door to the second floor is behind a wall on the first floor of Bodywrx.     

    Hartzler said the second story housed a pool hall and dance hall a half-century ago, but now it is not even used for storage. She said the interior walls will have to be knocked down and everything will be taken out.

    ?We will have to start from scratch,? she said.

    The grant stipulates that the project must be complete within 18 months. Hartzler said the company in charge of refurbishing the second floor is the same company in charge of remodeling the façade ? Wood Construction, of Ainsworth. She said once the company is finished with the façade, it will turn its attention to the apartments, which Hartzler hoped would happen this year.

For the full story, see the Aug. 23 edition of The Washington Evening Journal