Marquette Council discusses new meat store, Pleasant Ridge Road

By Audrey Posten, Times-Register

The city of Marquette is throwing its support behind a new business venture in the community. At its Dec. 14 meeting, the council approved proceeding with a pre-application for a Community Catalyst Grant for improvements to the apartment building at 133 North St., in the city’s downtown.

Amos and Tina Troester, who also farm in rural Garnavillo, recently purchased the property to serve as an off-farm office and storefront to sell meat.

“We’re super excited about it,” said Tina. “It fits our business in several different ways.”

The building currently has six apartment units, and the couple plans to maintain one of the downstairs units as well as the four upstairs.

“Then we’re going to take the large unit where the Soullis lived when they owned it and convert it into an office space in the back and a retail meat store in the front. We also don’t have an on-site laundry for our current residents, so we were going to put a laundromat up front, so we would have a laundromat that would be open to the public,” Tina added. “A meeting space downstairs would be another piece, plus the basement is empty and there’s room for three storage units as well.”

The Troesters currently raise poultry and beef and are planning to bring pork products on as well, according to Tina. The meat store will include three merchandising freezers, two merchandising refrigerators and a dry display.

“It’s going to be all local focused. The story of the products is really important to us and something we want to showcase. It will be more than featuring products. It really will be featuring the business and family raising it,” Tina said. “We’ve been blessed by the community support of our business, and we want to share that with other producers and really get the community and consumers back to the farm, to know their farmers.”

Two to three years down the road, Amos said they’d like to work with local producers to offer farm tours during the summer months.

“It would start out of our business and then we’ll load up a van and take people around to show them the area and what we do in Clayton County,” he explained.

Tina said their immediate focus is interior renovations, while the long-term plan includes opening up the front of the building—which once housed Dickey’s Market—to make it look like more of a storefront again.

“With the Community Catalyst Grant, that’s something we could do a lot sooner. The grant would be an outside focus and really bring it back and make it look like it used to. I’m envisioning all kinds of windows out front,” she commented. “We’re really excited and wanted to bring it in front of you to see if it’s something you’re interested in.”

City clerk Bonnie Basemann said the Community Catalyst pre-application is due in late January. If successful, the city could partner with the Troesters to write a proposal due in April. The program is administered by the Iowa Economic Development Authority.

“The application is best perceived if there is a match. It could be TIF incentives, cash, whatever the council decides. The current budget has $15,000 in it for business economic development,” she told the council. “They want to know it’s a partnership and that the city is invested in this.”

Both mayor Steve Weipert and the council members were supportive.

“I think they have a very good vision for what they want and how to get to that point,” Weipert said. “Right now, we don’t need to come up with a match, just something that says, ‘Thank you very much that you want to come to Marquette, Iowa.’ We will do whatever we can to make that possible.”

“It’s something that’s unique,” added council member Dave Schneider. “I like your ideas. It would benefit the community.”

Pleasant Ridge Road discussed

The council approved partnering with Clayton County on potential improvements to Pleasant Ridge Road. County Engineer Rafe Koopman, who attended last week’s meeting, said he’d like to schedule a public meeting in late January or February to gather resident input and discuss ideas.

“Pleasant Ridge Road needs to be repaired and I would like to reduce the amount of guardrail and get more of a landing area for somebody who loses control so they can get more of a stop before they damage their vehicle against the guardrail. That would be my goal,” Koopman said. “I know you also have some issues with flooding in the town down there, with the water that comes down that ravine.”

Koopman is looking out five years for construction, give or take two to three years depending on what the project involves.

“What I’m asking is do you want to work with me initially? What I think we would do is have a public meeting where we invite the adjacent land owners to the project to come in and anybody else who wants to and just look at the area and get their thoughts on ways we can make it better, whether it’s retention basins or whatever. Start the whole process that way before we get into some highly involved engineering,” Koopman said.

Weipert acknowledged the city has already had potential flood mitigation projects engineered three or four times by different companies.

“We’ve been promising solutions for this problem for years. This might be our best option,” he said. “So far, all we’ve done is spent money on engineers. We haven’t fixed the problem.”

“Then it’s time to stop doing that and really make a commitment to it. If you want to be part of that process, it would be great,” Koopman said. “At least we can start out together.”

Casino rumors addressed

Weipert ended the meeting by addressing rumors related to Casino Queen Marquette. He said the recent departure of general manager Don Ostert and the closure of the buffet on Mondays and Tuesdays due to short staffing has people worried the casino plans to close.

“When they find more help, they will open back up. They are not closing the casino. It will be here,” he stressed.

In fact, Weipert said Casino Queen Marquette will get a different boat within the next year.

“The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission has approved that. It’s bigger than this one and will rejuvenate what we have here. Hopefully, it will be getting bigger and better,” he said.