Big Plans For Historic Overton Building

By VERNON ROBISON

The Progress

A historic downtown Overton building, that has been vacant for more than a decade, is about to spring to life again.

Plans are being made for the former St. John’s Catholic Church building on Moapa Valley Blvd to be transformed into a specialty soft drink emporium, an innovative eatery, a boutique sweet shoppe, and a cozy community meeting place all in one. But it will take the entrepreneurial efforts of no less than three couples to pull it off.

The real estate investor
The story starts with Moapa Valley residents Jean and Nathalie Gottschalk. Among other things, the Gottschalks are real estate investors who are bullish on downtown Overton.

Jean has shown his management acumen before. About a year ago, he purchased an aging downtown commercial property just down the street from the church property. Within only a few weeks, he had transformed that property from a tired old tax write-off to a fully occupied, bustling commercial space.

In an interview last week, Jean said that he has had his eye on the former Catholic Church property for a long time.

“Half of the valley has been looking at that old building for a long time and thinking that something needs to be done with it,” Gottschalk said. “I have wanted to buy it for a while. But I have always wondered what we could do that would justify the expense of buying it and repairing it. I’d need a certain amount of rental income to make it work. And all the things that I could think of wouldn’t produce enough.”

Then, not too long ago, Gottschalk received a call from someone in Arizona who had also had an eye on that same building for quite a while.

Business owner with local ties
Scott Knight hails from Goodyear, Arizona just west of Phoenix. He is married to Lexie who grew up in the Moapa Valley. Lexie is the daughter of legendary MVHS coach Jeff Keel (as in Jeff Keel Football Stadium at MVHS) and his wife Jolynn Keel, both of whom recently retired from long and distinguished careers at the high school.

Knight is a nursing student with about 18 months left of school in Arizona. But he also has a savvy head for business. Shortly after getting married 10 years ago, the Knights started an education center in Goodyear as their first business. It quickly grew and has become quite successful.

More recently, though, the Knight’s opened their second business: a little boutique soda shop in Goodyear called Soda Bomb.

“There were no soda shops on that side of town,” Scott said. “So a couple of years ago, we decided to pull the trigger and open up. Now we have multiple locations opening in Arizona.”

Soda Bomb is reknown for its custom-flavored soda drinks. But the business also offers fresh-baked cookies that are reportedly “to die for.”

Among an array of cookie varieties is a beloved sugar cookie called ‘The Jo-Jo’. This cookie is named after Lexie’s mom Jolynn whose recipe it is. This and the other treats offered at Soda Bomb have made it a great success in Arizona.

But Lexie has always yearned to return home to Moapa Valley to raise their children. And Scott feels the same way. Now, with nursing schooling approaching an end, the couple decided it might be a good time to make plans.

“I have loved the valley ever since I was introduced to it,” Scott said. “So we are excited to be going back there. After all, not every kid gets to play football in a stadium named after his grandfather. We wanted our kids to be able to do that and we are excited for those community connections.”

Scott confirmed that he and Lexie had also had their eyes on the Catholic Church property for a while now. “We have thought about doing something with that old building,” Scott said. “But the amount of money it would take to bring it up to code just never made sense on paper for our business.”

By happenstance, the Knights became familiar with the Gottschalks and they entered into a discussion about the old building. “Jean said that he thought he could make it work if we did this and he did that, and we went back and forth a little bit,” Knight said. “It seemed promising.”

The only problem is that the opportunity was coming a little too early. Scott still has to finish nursing school. So they needed someone on the ground in Moapa Valley to get things moving. The Knights decided to offer the business as a franchise. He posted a notice of the franchise opportunity on social media outlets. That is how he came to meet the Osmonds of Logandale.

The local franchisees
Shane and Brittney Osmond had always wanted to open a friendly little soda shop. They have friends that had started a similar operation in Utah and the Osmonds had dreamed of bringing a franchise to the Moapa Valley. They even got so far as to put money down on a local property.

“But trying to get a new building through all of the approvals needed is so hard here,” Shane said. “Doing it on our own just wasn’t financially going to work.”

Then the Osmonds saw Scott’s social media posts and got in touch with him. Things came together from there and they decided to become the franchisee for a local “Soda Bomb” shop.

“One of the things we loved is that they make everything from scratch,” said Brittney. “A lot of these places bring in cookies from somewhere else, for example. But Soda Bomb bakes everything fresh on site. That is a big thing for us.”

The Osmonds got on board and the triangle was complete.

“The Dairy”
To make all the necessary building renovations pencil out, the enterprise had to involve more than just a soda shop.
“That building is quite large for just a soda shop and bakery,”
said Scott Knight. “And we really wanted to make it a community-centered place for locals to come hang out and have good food.”

So the Osmonds and Knights decided to partner together on a separate restaurant counter in the same building which they are calling “The Kitchen.”

There is still a lot yet to be announced on all that “The Kitchen” will be offering. There is a lot innovative ideas being developed for it. But Scott Knight said that it would serve up casual American-style cuisine that, like the bakery products, would be fresh, high-quality and made by hand on-site.

“The Kitchen” will also feature plenty of local flavors and cuisine as well. “We are going to regularly have menu items that feature local ingredients like local honey and locally-grown pomegranates and more,” said Brittney Osmond. “It will be a one-of-a-kind sort of place.”

A third element of the planned facility will feature a sweet shop which would offer a variety of candy dispensers, caramel apples, home-made donuts and much more.

Central to all three of these shops would be a comfortable dining area with loft-style seating, couches, small tables and large-screen TVs.

“It will be a fun area where people, both kids and adults, can come in and meet for a drink or for lunch and just enjoy being together,” said Brittney.

“We just want it to be really nice,” Shane added. “A place where people feel comfortable and, even if they don’t get anything, they can just hang out and have fun together.”

Brittney said that a lot of thought had gone into what the facility as a whole should be called. They finally decided to revert back to the rich community history of that building.

“I guess a long time ago, before it was a church, that old building was actually a dairy,” Brittney said. “So we have decided that the whole building will be called ‘The Dairy’ in honor of that history.”

Renovation
Gottschalk said that there is plenty to do in remodeling and equipping the old building for all of these new plans. Last weekend, a crew was on site to sandblast the old paint off the building to prepare for the new look. But there is a lot more to come.

Gottschalk has already hired an architect who has drawn up plans for the renovations. These plans include installing a full commercial kitchen, providing restroom facilities, re-doing much of the plumbing and electrical in the building, replacing the flooring and more.

“We are waiting on the plans right now and then we will be waiting on permits to get started,” Gottschalk said.

Gottschalk hopes that the renovations will be completed within about six months so that the businesses can open.

Scott Knight said that he would be ready for it even sooner. “I know that there is a lot of speculation in the valley on whether it will ever be possible to bring that building up to code,” he said. “But there is really nothing wrong with it that would prevent it from being turned into a restaurant. It just needs some TLC.”