Ball State to study downtown Waterloo and gather ideas on helping turn area around

“I think it will be a really good experience for them, and it will be great for us to get some fresh ideas to turn Waterloo around,” Woenker said.

A professor will oversee the class, which starts in January.

The students will look at the entire downtown area, Woenker said. Town officials are especially interested in the former Hart’s Grocery building, which the town’s Redevelopment Commission purchased last spring for $26,000.

Town officials were weighing the building’s future when they learned about the possibility of working with Ball State students.

“It’s in really bad shape,” Woenker said about the former grocery store. “We decided we would get more ideas about what to do with it.”

The building dates back to the 1800s, Woenker said. Potential developers have been looking at a retail use on its first floor with residences or offices on the upper story.

Waterloo will need to offer some incentives to anyone who takes over the building, because its needs are so extensive, Woenker said.

The town will ask the Ball State students to “give us a bigger picture than just this one building we own — because it is very dominant in the downtown,” Woenker added.

“If a lot of people want a certain kind of business, we might be able to recruit that, knowing that we have support,” she said. “It might be that they decide we need a medical office of some kind, because we don’t have anything like that in Waterloo.”