News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education Vice President Diane Schultz, left, shakes hands with David Dargis after the school board accepted Dargis’s bid for the school district’s Grambau Education Center on Monday.

ROGERS CITY — The Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education on Monday voted six to one to accept David Dargis’s $5,000 bid for the district’s Grambau Education Center.

“I’m very excited and energetic and hoping we can move this forward quickly before closing and we can get to the work of renovating the Grambau Center,” Dargis said.

Rogers City resident Rachel Goodstein implored the board not to give the center to a private party but instead be developed into something that would better serve all of Rogers City.

“A comprehensive plan for the Grambau Center should be undertaken,” Goodstein said. “The future use of this taxpayer-funded building should benefit the entire community.”

Rogers City City Manager Joe Hefele spoke about the work he had done with Alpena Area Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Director Mike Mahler and the Chamber’s economic development coordinator, Lenny Avery, to come up with a good future for the Grambau Center.

Hefele stated that, through Avery, officials were able to get in contact with Joe Heaphy, president of Ethos Development, a Detroit development firm, who has more than 30 years of development experience.

Hefele emphasized the importance of funding for the Grambau project and cited the experience of Heaphy and the rest of Ethos Development as a massive boon in securing the necessary funding to for any project involving the Grambau Center.

“I keep coming back to one simple fact and it’s that this is a 40,000-square-foot building,” Hefele said. “One way or another, you need to bring in significant funds, much more than any grant that I know. That is where the expertise of the folks that we now have, with multiple kinds of tax credits, grant funds, and other abilities to tap into funds from the Legislature is just so incredibly huge.”

While Ethos Development did express interest in converting Grambau Center into housing units, they did not make an official bid, instead wanting to be sure they had the funds to be able to complete the project before making anything official.

In addition to the $5,000, Dargis’s offer also included taking on the payments to patch up the roof of the center. During his presentation, Dargis talked about his experience in developing properties and securing deals that lead to others developing properties.

Dargis stated that he was fully dedicated to seeing the project through to the end, no matter what cost he would have to deal with along the way.

Dargis has stated that he is open to working with Ethos on development of the project if they are interested.