Joe Van Esly and Revitalize LLS will present a plan to restore the historic Empire School House at the Glen Lake Community Library Tuesday, Feb. 4 at 4 p.m. to discuss the vision for this historic community landmark.
Van Esly and Revitalize will also present at the Village of Empire Planning Commission at 7 p.m. the same night.
“I plan on doing a historic restoration,” Van Esly said.
Van Esly is currently working through the Brownfield process and is working on gathering funds.
“We’re going to turn the building into what you call a ‘resto-mod’ of how they take a classic car, and they put new brakes and a new engine in,” Van Esly said. “It’s a national treasure, and I’ve always wanted to do the restoration, but it seems the timing is right now ... It’s my time in life that I can dedicate more time to (the schoolhouse) and become more involved and spend more time up in Empire.”
Van Esly had owned the building since 2005.
Besides timing in his life, Van Esly draws inspiration after Dave Taghon passed away earlier this month.
“I wish I had this done while he was alive,” Van Esly said. “(The Schoolhouse) needs to function as a place where people can gather. One idea is that I want to put a coffee house there so people can stop and charge their car sand spend a half hour getting a coffee. I want to have a couple rooms for myself and I want a room for history. I’ve got (several) artifacts.”
Van Esly has plenty of ideas with intentions of executing. He is quickly approaching semiretirement age and is looking to spend more time in Leelanau.
“It needs to function as a place where people can gather,” Van Esly said.
Van Esly has many ideas, including a community center, coffee shop, leasing out to businesses, and even a small residential part of the project. The kindergarten house will be residential in some form with plans of having the gym be used for activities.
Van Esly is currently a Realtor in Canton and has sold over 10,000 properties both residential and commercial throughout his career. He does have experience with other historic restorations through the State of Michigan.
Van Esly was introduced to the area when one of his daughters were at a cross country camp. He currently keeps his antique collection in the building.
Van Esly is not concerned about the septic as he has plans for replacement along with whatever else comes with the building to get it operational.
“I don’t wanna put up a shopping center or anything on the corner. I understand the value of that building and the way it is historically,” he said.
Cost of the project will be explained more at the meetings in February.
“I have no problem with that and I would like to see something done with the school house and actually going to follow through with it,” Davis said. “We want development, we would like to see something done with the schoolhouse and the same thing downtown at the old hardware store,” Davis said.
Plans to restore the Empire School at the corner of Front and M-22 will be considered at a public hearing Tuesday at the Glen Lake Community School. Courtesy photo
