Sheldon, Iowa — The ribbon was cut Friday morning on two new Sheldon businesses that are housed in one location. Downtown Grounds and the Sheldon Fusion Center were welcomed to the business community by local dignitaries and the Sheldon Ambassadors.
Sheldon Mayor Greg Geels began the ribbon cutting by extending the City’s congratulations on the new business ventures.
(As above) “Mark and Chris, on behalf of the City I want to extend my congratulations to you. In a season where there’s been a lot of disappointments and cancellations and can’t-do’s, you guys are having that can-do attitude. You’ve opened up this shop on Main Street…kept the building occupied. And I love the idea, the shared work space, great coffee…i had a cup the other day and it was one of the best cups I’ve had in a long time. I wish you all the best, I wish you success and prosperity, and I want to thank you again for your investment in this community.”
Sheldon Development Director Curt Strouth echoed the comments made by Mayor Geels.
(As above) “I’d also like to echo our sentiments on behalf of the SCDC Board of Directors. Chris and Mark, what an outstanding couple of projects we have here for our community….a co-working space, where typically we only see these in larger urban environments…to have something like that in our community is something to be proud of. Thank you. And then Downtown Grounds, the coffee shop. Who doesn’t love to go do a little shopping, grab some coffee and have a great day in the process. So congratulations, we look forward to working with you guys for many years to come, to make sure you guys are successful. We encourage everybody to come out in the community and check this place out. Those of you who are maybe listening in and maybe looking for some office space, I highly recommend checking this place out. Great opportunity, you’re fully set up, you’re ready to turn key, as we like to say. So come on in, check it out, and again, congratulations.”
Skip Tanner is the President of the Sheldon Ambassadors, and he presented Mark Trego and Chris Nuckols with a plaque commemorating their ribbon cutting.
(As above) “(I’m going to) present you with a couple of plaques here, from the Ambassadors, with a piece of ribbon from the ribbon cutting, and the plaque says, ‘May the confidence you’ve shown in the future of this community be rewarded with many years of success. As a keepsake we wish to present to you a section of the ribbon from the ribbon cutting this morning. So, on behalf of the Ambassadors I’ll officially present you with the plaque for both Fusion and Downtown Grounds.'”
Mark Trego told the group how the Sheldon Fusion Center came to be.
(As above) “It really came out of necessity, as I think most good businesses do. Chris and I were running our own businesses, working out of our houses and we were trying to find office space that worked for one person or a small company here locally and we really couldn’t find anything. So we just started looking around to see what was happening in larger cities with the co-working spaces, and just threw those ideas around for a bit and ended up coming up wit h this idea.”
Chris Nuckols talked about the genesis of Downtown Grounds.
(As above) “We were trying to figure out a way to have fantastic coffee and offerings within an office space, and we sort of lucked on Fantasia, which was closing, and they didn’t have an opportunity to know what they were going to do with it, so it filled a perfect need for us so we bought their equipment and managed to bring most of their staff over. So it was just a perfect thing. We’re really investing in Sheldon downtown. We think this city has a great downtown, we want it to stay that way and even get better, so bringing in an additional coffee shop as well as the office space…the two just married perfectly together.”
Sheldon Fusion Center and Downtown Grounds are housed in the former Marigolds building on 3rd Avenue downtown in Sheldon and are open 7 days a week, 7 am to 5 pm Monday through Friday, and 9 am t0 3 pm Saturday and Sunday.
