By the end of this year: That’s Karen Morris’s ambitious timeline for paying off the mortgage on the Historic Elk Rapids Township Hall. Morris is president of the Historic Elk Rapids Township Hall Association (HERTHA), which bought the building last fall after a months-long saga that nearly saw it sold off as a residential use. Now, Morris and her team are ready for a new chapter – one involving building improvements and modernizations, more events and community uses, and bigger cashflow and economic impact. The first step is owning the hall free and clear, and HERTHA has launched a new capital campaign with precisely that goal in mind.

Built in 1883, the Elk Rapids Township Hall was designed to be both the hub of the local government and a social and cultural community center. For years, the building has been the home venue of the Elk Rapids Players Theater Company, as well as a frequent meeting place for the Elk Rapids Chamber of Commerce, a popular venue for weddings and birthday parties, a site for political rallies and debates, and more. The township vacated the building in 2004, but retained ownership and continued to lease it as a community space. HERTHA has been a tenant (and the manager of the hall) since 2012.

Last year, though, the Elk Rapids Township board began exploring the possibility of selling the township hall, citing mounting insurance and maintenance costs. The property hit the market in June, and the highest-dollar offer it drew came from a local family who wanted to convert it into a residence. The township board voted narrowly to accept HERTHA’s lower offer instead, and the nonprofit ultimately purchased the hall for $625,000 in October.

Thanks to community fundraising, HERTHA was able to make a sizable down payment, with only a $300,000 mortgage loan from Alden Bank. Now, the nonprofit has launched a capital campaign with a goal of raising that $300,000 and paying off the mortgage in full by the end of the year.

“Once we take over ownership completely, we can start focusing on making improvements to the building and the different services that are provided here,” says Ryan Walsh, HERTHA’s event coordinator. Top priorities including replacing the building’s historic arched windows, upgrading utilities, and replacing the roof. Those are all big projects, Morris says, and would be better served by having the full focus and financial might of the organization behind them.

Longer-term, the wish list includes improvements to the stage (“Theater is obviously a big thing in this community, so we’d like to put some investment into that part of the building,” Walsh says) and installing a “catering kitchen” to broaden the scope of what the hall can offer as an event venue.

All of the work and fundraising, Morris tells The Ticker, is part of a longer-term vision of making the township hall even more of a community asset than it already is. While Walsh says the hall has hosted a wide range of events since HERTHA took over ownership last fall – including plays, trivia nights, a Christmas gala, improv comedy, community meetings, memorial services, and even a psychic show – he and Morris stress that there is still plenty of available time left on the calendar. They want to book out those hours as much as possible.

“There's good opportunity during the daytime,” says Walsh of the schedule. “For instance, there’s not an activity center for seniors in Elk Rapids. So, why wouldn’t we want to do something here, like euchre tournaments or other simple senior programming? It doesn't take much to get that kind of thing rolling, it’s just a matter of having the right partnerships in place and working with people who have ideas.”

With what Morris describes as a “very reasonable” operating budget for HERTHA, most of the cashflow from increased hall bookings would go right back into the building to fund future improvements. Such projects are currently paid for mostly through grants, with HERTHA Vice President Terri Riesig taking the lead on grantwriting. A more active events slate at the township hall, Riesig says, would not only mean less need to rely on grant support, but would also hopefully yield broader community benefits.

“We like to think that we contribute to the economy of the village,” Riesig says. “If we have 150 people here at a play, many of them will go out to dinner first. They’ll get ice cream afterwards. They might stop at the gas station on the way out of town, or pick up groceries at Village Market. Or maybe they'll do a little gift shopping before they come. There's a reciprocity that we keep our doors open as much as we can, because while this might be the first place people stop, they then go out into the rest of town. And that helps everyone.”