Construction work on the west side of the downtown Shelbyville redevelopment project has slowed the progress of renovating the Methodist Building.

Plans are still in place, though, to bring the tallest building on the Public Square back to life.

Design plans are being developed by an architect, according to Ron Kelsay of Genesis Property Development, 524 N. Harrison St. in Shelbyville.

“We had a little bit of a pause but we are moving forward with that again,” said Kelsay. “Some of it was COVID-19 and some of it was timing. The west side of the Public Square was torn up first and we didn’t want to complete our building with the construction (ongoing).”

The Methodist Building anchors the north corner of West Washington St. as it enters the Public Square but has sat vacant for many years.

Genesis purchased the building with the goal of creating retail space and corporate apartments in a downtown setting.

“We’ve modified a little bit what the development is going to look like,” explained Kelsay. “We are planning on the top two floors as corporate apartments, the second and third floors as office space, and the first floor either retail or a high-end office.”

Grover Center photo

The five-story Methodist Building is currently owned by Genesis Property Development in Shelbyville. The company is designing the building for retail and office space as well as corporate apartments.

Specific interest in building space caused Genesis to lower the number of floors with apartments to create more office space.

“We’ve had some people express interest in office space downtown so we realize there is a little more demand for office space,” said Kelsay.

The goal is to have the building open in the first quarter of 2022.

“We are in design right now and hope to get into construction in the fall,” said Kelsay. “We’ve already been in there doing some demo work and general preparation stuff. A lot of infrastructure work has already been done when we were doing the parking garage.

“While it was torn up we made sure we had all the utilities upgraded, water and electric into the building. A lot of that base work is already done. A lot has been going on, it’s just not exactly visible.”

Grover Center photo

Once the downtown redevelopment project is further along, renovation will commence on the century-old Methodist Building to bring it back to life.

The century-old building needs exterior work as well, including a new roof.

“We are targeting first of next year to be done with that,” said Kelsay. “We wanted to make sure the Public Square work was completed before we started trying to promote our building.”

Genesis Property Development is overseeing the downtown construction project which includes a new parking garage and restructured traffic pattern through downtown Shelbyville.

The entire project is scheduled for completion in late 2021.