Cedar Rapids man wants to move Freeway

Posted on Nov 02, 2009 by Adam Belz.

A property owner in southeast Cedar Rapids wants to move the old Freeway Express Lounge across the Cedar River to a new home in New Bohemia.

The lounge, one of Linn County’s flooded properties, is slated for demolition to make room for a Juvenile Courts facility on Eighth Avenue SW just east of Interstate 380.

Michael Richards, a businessman and activist from New Bohemia, is asking the supervisors to give him the building and help pay for the move in exchange for his taking it off their hands, saving demolition costs and keeping it on the tax rolls.

“They can pay an amount of money for demolition, and they can pay an equal amount of money to us to move it,” Richards said.

Richards said his son, Michael Richards Jr., owns land across from the Brosh Funeral Home. The Freeway Express could be moved there and renovated into mixed-use residential and commercial, he said.

“It would be another commercial storefront in a cultural district,” Michael Richards said. “An artist living upstairs who has a work space downstairs — that would be its ideal use.”

First, Richards and Rod Scott of Jeremy Patterson House Moving Inc. must figure out how much it will cost to move the building across the river.

Then they must get approval from the supervisors. Richards will make a formal presentation Monday. Barring unforeseen obstacles, the supervisors and their staff say they’re open to the idea.

“If we can get the new owner to say we’re free and clear of liability, I don’t see any disadvantage” to it, said Darrin Gage, the supervisors’ director of policy and administration.