The Grain Elevator: What to do?

It looks as if the historic grain elevator in my town is going to be around for awhile – until the time, perhaps, it falls down all on its own.

Admittedly, very few people outside of my town care about the grain elevator.

But I really like it. It's more than a hundred years old and, in spite of its tumbledown appearance, is a fixture in this western berg. After a prolonged battle between land developers and historic preservationists, city officials dreamed up a plan to save the thing and, somehow, make it useful again.

I've written about the grain elevator four previous times:

The Grain Elevator;

The Grain Elevator, Pt. Two;

In the Balance; and

Game Over

But the game isn't over. Not quite.

Oh, they won't knock it down anytime soon. That much, at least, seems certain. But the local Historic Preservation Committee, charged with overseeing a plan to do something, voted not to recommend to the city council that it choose between one of two developers who submitted plans to restore the thing.

The same commission approved a motion to recommend the city come up with the money to do a basic stabilization to the structure.

I have no idea what will happen next.