On March 5th, Happy Hippie in Clay Center announced that structural repairs had begun on their historic downtown location. A total of $185,000 in grants has been awarded to help fund construction. Both grants, from HTF and Emergency HEAL, are a one-to-one match. Happy Hippie owner, Erin Glavan, said she has received state funding with lower interest rates and has applied for tax credits to help cover the business’s half of the costs.
“It’s nice to finally get the project started,” she said. “It’s been in the works for a while.”
The construction will repair a crack, add floor joists in the basement, and additional structural repairs will take place in the building’s second story.
Glavan learned the building would need work when redoing the store front the summer of 2023.
“I wasn’t planning on doing the updates for historical status,” she said. “I just wanted to make the front of my business look nicer. That’s when everything kind of unraveled.”
Glavan said the crack was temporarily fixed to keep moisture at bay. Then she got to work figuring out how to pay for structural issues.
Because much of the storefront changes restored original parts of the building, it opened the possibility for state grants to do the repair. Glavan said the contributing factors were opening second-story windows, the front display window, and an inset door, as well as the exterior’s ceiling cornice, or decorative trim.
Covering two addresses, the buildings were constructed in 1895 and 1987; 811 5th Street is considered the contributing party as a historical address, which is the larger portion to the north. Its neighbor, 809 5th Street, is now connected as a single space. Formerly, it was its own storefront; the buildings were likely combined in the 1970s, said Glavan.
“With these buildings, there’s kind of always work to be done, but we’re not scraping the surface. It’s getting a good portion of it done.”
Eventually, she said the goal is to remodel the building’s second floor so it can be used for a commercial or rental space.
Glavan said the interior repairs are estimated to take about six weeks, followed by the roof replacement and awning instillation.
“The structural work is definitely going to stabilize the building. I’ll feel much better when it’s completely done.”
