Longtime company in downtown Rigby currently being demolished this week

The internet site of the aged Me’n Stans Restaurant at 100 West Principal Road in Rigby in October 2019. | Rett Nelson, EastIdahoNews.com file image

RIGBY – A creating that sat vacant for yrs in downtown Rigby will quickly be torn down.

Brent Tolman, an administrator with the Rigby Urban Renewal Company, tells EastIdahoNews.com the construction formerly occupied by the Me’n Stans restaurant will be demolished later this week.

“The intent is to get it down, thoroughly clean up the good deal and make it desirable to a new advancement,” Tolman claims.

The building was these types of a problem that fixing it would have price tag additional than it is really worth, he states.

“It looks excellent on the exterior, but when we acquired into it, we observed some asbestos and some deterioration,” suggests Tolman. “There are parts that aren’t safe to wander by mainly because of collapse, so the agency boarded it up to keep people out of it.”

He also says a tree was developing in the concrete pad at the rear of the constructing.

The company will be publishing requests for proposals to choose “the most correct progress for that site” when the project is entire. A draft will be authorized at its future conference on Feb. 18.

The Rigby City Renewal Company bought the Me’n Stans developing and the vacant great deal at the rear of it from the prior owners previous August. Tolman claims they felt it was a great in good shape for a rehabilitation task.

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Andrew and Jorelle McClellan bought it in Oct 2019 just after it had sat vacant for two and a 50 percent a long time. They experienced been setting up to rent it out as office environment place for other organizations. Renovations speedily obtained underway, but security problems with the setting up merged with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought every little thing to a halt.

Andrew and Jorelle McClellan renovating the basement of Me’n Stans in Oct. 2019. | Rett Nelson, EastIdahoNews.com

“Rigby City Renewal provided to invest in it a week right after we purchased it,” says Jorelle. “We informed (them) no, and then they held asking us for about a 12 months, and lastly we just resolved to sell it.”

The closure of Me’n Stans in May possibly 2017 was not meant to be long lasting, Donae Colborn, the son of the restaurant’s primary proprietor, Stan Colborn, informed us in 2018. When the town commenced eliminating avenue lights in connection with the Maverik fuel station building, Stan, who was 82 at the time, created a break up-next conclusion to permanently shut down.

Me’n Stans has a extended background in japanese Idaho courting back again 50 yrs in the past. The Jefferson Star stories Stan Colborn initial opened a Rexburg place in August 1969. The Rigby place opened someday in the 1980s just after decades of operation in St. Anthony, Jackson and West Yellowstone.

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Principal and Point out Street, wherever the Rigby retailer sat, is an iconic site for longtime people. Before Me’n Stans, Walker’s Cafe occupied the area, and in the 1920s, it was residence to just one of the premier section shops in the location.

Just one of the most asked for new corporations in city above the past many several years is a spouse and children diner. While it is much too early to know what will conclusion up occupying this corner, Tolman claims he’s hunting forward to looking at what variety of business enterprise it draws in.

“I think it is going to be advantageous to the city of Rigby when that corner is cleaned up and some thing new is made there,” claims Tolman. “There have been some developers convey fascination in the house above the final thirty day period, but the company is not at the point of entering any negotiations with them (yet). The moment we put the proposal out, we’ll see what type of responses we get back again, and board customers will make a final decision.”