At work Bruce Nelsen, a Staples Historical Society volunteer, paused late last summer as he worked on repairing and replacing one of the lobby windows at the Staples Depot. Additional renovation for the 100 year old depot should be accomplished with a grant the SHS was awarded last week. (Staples World file photo by Tom Crawford) A preliminary approval was given Feb. 10 for a $404,000 grant to the Staples Historical Society for use in renovating and preserving the historic Staples Northern Pacific Depot.

The funds, which will not be available until 2013, are part of a $505,000 project. In order to receive the funding, the local historical society will have to provide a $101,000 cash match.

“This is about the greatest news we’ve had since obtaining

ownership of the depot,” Tom Kajer, vice president of

the Staples Historical Society, said after getting the news. “This will enable us to continue the renovation of the

depot which was begun with the MnDOT roof replacement project this past summer.”

The money will be used to upgrade the depot building, which is 100 years old this year. Priority projects include updating the heating system and installing air conditioning; updating the building’s plumbing system and updating the electrical system. Also planned are restoration of 52 windows and two main doors, plus reconstruction of selected interior ceilings and walls.

The funding was approved Feb. 10 by the Region 5 Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) and comes from the federal Transportation Enhancement Act (TEA) program. The SHS had submitted their grant request to the Region 5 group on Jan. 15.

SHS members Kajer, Mary Stangle-Hess and Tom Crawford made an oral presentation before the TAC group prior to the committee’s decision. The TAC group is chaired by Todd County District One Commissioner Mark Blessing and includes county engineers and other transportation specialists from the five Region Five counties. Chris Etzler, the Region 5 Transportation planner, is staff administrator for this group.

The SHS had applied for the same federal TEA funding a year ago but was not successful. Etzler said each year the TAC group has approximately $3.5 million avail- able and this year had about $16 million worth of applications submitted for funding. The SHS request was the only one under the Transportation Enhancement category, but was competing with county road, bridge and other projects, such as bus transportation and rail safety projects.

The approximate 20 members of the TAC debated the merits of the different funding requests for almost two hours after the SHS presentation, Etzler said. They ranked the projects and finally decided to fund ten out of 22 projects submitted. The amount awarded to Staples was the full amount requested and was the second largest amount of the ten successful applicants.

All actions of the TAC group also need to be approved by another regional group, the Area Transportation Partnership (ATP) with a final approval at the state and federal level later this year. However, Etzler said in his experience the approval by the Region 5 TAC panel has never been overturned.

Stangle-Hess, in her comments to the TAC committee, stressed the community backing. “Our depot has become a community project for Staples, and we have seen many organizations, citizens and former railroad employees and their families come running to see that the restoration of the depot becomes a reality.” Many other groups have assisted, she added, such as the city of Staples for snow plowing and other maintenance help, Amtrak, and Burlington Northern-Santa Fe. Smaller grants have been received from the Staples Community Foundation, the Todd Wadena Electric Operation Round Up, the Staples Host Lions and the Initiative Foundation.

Former Mayor Bruce Nelsen, who has personally renovated about half the windows in the building’s main lobby, was also instrumental in preparing the TEA grant application. “This TEA funding will enable the first phase of what will most likely be a 15 to 20 year, three to five phase restoration process,” Nelsen said.

Sally Gorton, SHS treasurer, said “I’m so excited we have this, it’s a dream come true to get this funding. It shows what a great effort by committed volunteers can accomplish.”

She added the SHS fund raising committee will have the next three years to raise the matching funds. The SHS in the past year alone raised over $40,000, Gorton’s records show, with about $35,000 spent on depot expenses, including windows and other energy saving improvements.

Both the city of Staples and Todd County approved resolutions of support for the project. Todd County has agreed to be the project’s fiscal sponsor, as required by federal rules, and the city council okayed a partnership agreement for maintenance of the depot during the life of the grant project.

Tom Crawford, SHS project manager, said the first step after this is the SHS hiring a part-time depot manager to handle various day to day issues involved with the depot management and restoration work. Up to now, that has been done on a volunteer basis primarily by Stangle- Hess in her role as the society’s legal coordinator.

“We will need to continue to seek more funds to use for both matching funds and also for other expenses,” he said, such as paying for additional staff.

Down the road, additional grant funding will be needed for services such as engineering plans, architectural work, environmental assessment work and other aspects involved with the federal grant. Those items are specifically excluded from the federal grant’s allowable expenses.