The rest of the story; SRS building owner tells of behind-the-scenes efforts to keep the agency open here

For David Gibson, owner of New Jersey-based Midwestern Holdings and the Fort Scott Professional Building, located at 710 W. Eighth St., the work that went on behind the scenes to save the local SRS building from closure took him through a range of emotions but was ultimately successful for the Fort Scott community.

The local SRS was one of nine scheduled to be closed by Sept. 30 in an effort to meet a state legislative mandate to cut $42 million in expenses. While offices in Coffeyville, Garnett, Lyndon, Marysville and Wellington will shut down, SRS centers in Lawrence, McPherson, Pratt and Fort Scott will remain open because they were able to find a way to cover the state's operating costs.

The state originally told Gibson he would have to come up with a one-year commitment of $84,000 to keep the Fort Scott office open. He said he was prepared to pay the money so he could recoup what was spent on renovating the space. He was then told that the requirement was actually $150,000 over two years, a figure he said he was not willing to pay. However, through the help of Fort Scott City Manager Dave Martin, Kansas Sen. Bob Marshall, R-Fort Scott, Kansas Rep. Caryn Tyson, R-Parker, the Bourbon County Economic Development Council Inc. and local banks, Gibson was encouraged to find a way to make it work.

"(Martin) called me almost daily. He called constituents, he reached out to people I didn't even know and told them my story and why we had to keep (the SRS office) there. The guy is amazing," Gibson said.

In fact, Martin is responsible for getting Gibson in contact with BEDCO. Gibson said he had never heard of the economic development organization, but through the process of saving the SRS office, he will be working with them again.

"BEDCO and I now have a great relationship and we're going to work together to help grow other things in the city," Gibson said.

In order to keep the office located in Fort Scott, Gibson committed to funding $100,000 and BEDCO has committed $50,000. Both amounts will be paid over a two-year period. The money paid to the state by Gibson and BEDCO will be used to pay the rent, utilities and other expenses that go with operating the state agency.

"We are literally giving the state of Kansas the money to pay their rent and expenses," Gibson said.

Gibson spent $900,000 to renovate the Fort Scott Professional Building to accommodate the SRS office. He said the state advertised they were accepting bids for a space to be used for the office and he was chosen to build the facility under "pretty stringent" specifications. He was required to have complete ADA compliance, a certain amount of parking, an adequate floor plan, fiber optic tele/data lines and reinsulate the building to meet the state's energy efficiency guidelines.

When the news of the closure came to him through a "cold" phone call from the state of Kansas, just a year and a half into a 15 year-lease with a 20-year option, he was pretty shocked.

"How on Earth can (the state of Kansas) make me spend all this money to build you, to your very stringent specifications, what you need and a year later tell me you can't afford it," Gibson said. "This was why I was so baffled as a buisness person."

Gibson said he told the state their decision was "preposterous" and believes officials knew there was a budget crisis when they asked him to borrow the $900,000 to build them a facility.

"Do I think there was some huge oversight on the state's side, absolutely," he said. Gibson said paying the money to keep the office open was "bittersweet," but he did it for the big picture. "Is it right? Absolutely not, but I did it."

Despite Gibson's displeasure with the way things were handled in the beginning, he said the hard work that went on behind the scenes to keep the office open was a "triumph of state government dealing with private enterprise." He said state governments are typically difficult to deal with and are not fast to make changes or quick to be accommodating.

"Dealing with the state is difficult at times. In this particular case, we were able to overcome all that red tape," he said.

The whole matter could have turned out much worse, said Gibson, who was ready to take legal action against Kansas.

"This could have turned into a fraud, misrepresentation, and unjust enrichment lawsuit against the state of Kansas," Gibson said. "This was going to go totally legal and is was going to be national press if this happened."

With the help of Marshall, Tyson, Blake Hudson, a local lawyer and current tenant of the Fort Scott Professional Building, and many others who communicated with the state to explain that the situation in Fort Scott was different than the others. The state was not closing an aging facility, rather they were shutting down a brand-new one. Instead of taking legal action, Gibson said he and Martin decided to take a "level-headed, logical approach" to reach a solution.

"I went through a range of emotions from anger and disappointment to empathy to finally, let's have a solution," Gibson said. "That's why I didn't go legal. It could have easily gone legal and we would've never had an agreement. The people that would have lost would be employees and the clients of SRS, and of course, me."

While communication in the beginning was "stark," Gibson said he compliments the Kansas Department of SRS for considering the attempt to keep the office open. He said that he was talking daily with Gary Hallmark, who reports directly to SRS Secretary Rob Siedlecki, even after hours to get a deal done.

He said he got word that Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback's office recommended that the lines of communication remain open until a solution could be found. Gibson said if a resolution was not found, the state would close the SRS office after being located in Fort Scott for more than 50 years.

Gibson said he came to Fort Scott with the sole purpose of looking at the building, formerly the Newman Young Clinic. He was contacted by a contractor that his company, Midwestern Holdings, had dealt with in the past. The contractor stopped in Fort Scott and made a friend while he was traveling the country and contacted Gibson to tell him about the building.

"The building was all but mothballed when I first saw it," Gibson said. "It was in serious need of repair."

Gibson said he fell in love with the community because it represented a booming economic center of a previous generation with all the architecture and brick roads. He met well-educated, highly-involved citizens who opened their doors and welcomed him.

"People in Fort Scott actually welcomed me into their homes to have dinner with them ... I have been in a number of people's homes in the city of Fort Scott purely for social events that have nothing to do with business, because that's how friendly and welcoming the people of Fort Scott were," Gibson said.

Gibson, who has a background in construction and development, looked at the building as a challenge in transforming it from a medical facility, which was no longer needed, to a multi-tenant office building to house businesses that are needed in Fort Scott.

Constructed in the late 1960s with an addition put on in the late 1970s by prominent Missouri architect Marshall Waters Woody, the building has a great structure and featured an elevator and excellent heating and air conditioning equipment, according to Gibson. He added the building was of much higher quality than any other building constructed at the same time, likely because it was meant to be a medical facility. Gibson said he loved the structure because it had "modern amenities in a historic part of town."

Gibson purchased the building in 2006 and the local SRS offices moved there in 2009. Gibson said keeping the SRS office, which occupies the first floor and is the building's largest tenant, will likely benefit the other leaseholders.

If the office had closed, he said, it would have been hard to keep the rest of the building opperating with such a large portion empty. In addition to the SRS office, the facility houses Lifetouch Photography, Hudson and Mullies law firm, which has been in Fort Scott more than 100 years, Choices Psychological and Fox Apothecary.

To celebrate the effort that went into saving the SRS office, Gibson will host a Fort Scott Area Chamber of Commerce After Hours event from 5:15-7:30 p.m. on Oct. 6. He said there is a "high probability" that Marshall, Tyson, Hudson, Landmark National Bank President Brad Chindamo and Haulmark will be there, as well as SRS employees. Anyone wishing to attend the event should contact the FSACC at (620) 223-3566.

Gibson said that he wants to used the event as a way to say thank you to everyone involved who helped keep the office open and promote the nearly 10,000 square feet of available space in the building. "There's a lot of opportunities in the rest of my building and I'm the creative kind of guy that will do it," Gibson said. "I am interested growing economic development in Fort Scott and Bourbon County."

To show his willingness to promote economic growth, Gibson said he will give any business that moves into the building three months of free rent. Anyone interested in what is available at the Fort Scott Profesional Building, located at 710 W. Eighth St., can visit www.fortscottprofessionalbldg.com.