‘We are at a standstill’: The SHACK puts its 6,000 square foot, downtown building on the market

As The SHACK’s decision makers were gathering input and contemplating their next move, their .16-acre property at the corner of Fifth Street and First Avenue North in Greybull was officially put up for sale earlier this week with an initial ask of $275,000.

The listing on the Canyon Real Estate website touts the 6,000-square-foot building’s proximity to downtown as well as its large footprint and layout potentially suitable for retail, office, warehouse or service applications.

The SHACK’s board of directors and its executive director, Jen Patrick, held two town-hall style meetings — the first on Saturday afternoon, followed by another Monday evening — to gather input on whether to stay on their current course or sell the building which has long been viewed as its future community youth center.

Neither was well attended, with Saturday’s turnout of five being slightly better than Monday’s, but overseers of The SHACK said they were thankful for the input.

Patrick said Saturday’s attendees delivered a message that “they’d hate to see it go, that they like the vision behind the big building and that it could serve more than just the youth and could serve all age groups.”

But the challenges that brought The SHACK to that point remain.

“A year ago, we wouldn’t have considered selling the building,” said Patrick.  “About six months ago is when we started discussing it.”

“We’re just waiting on God to show us which way to go.”

While progress has been made inside the building, to the point of having roughed-in walls, two big-ticket items remain. One is an HVAC system, estimated at $90,000, and the other, a fire suppression system, estimated at $72,000. 

John Henderson, a member of The SHACK’s board, said grant funding is more difficult to obtain now than it was in the early days of the building project and what’s available is earmarked for programming, not for operations or infrastructure improvements.

Patrick said The SHACK continues to submit more than 100 grant applications every month.  The grant money that comes in pays for games, electronic devices, snacks and so on.

The SHACK relies on donations to fund its employee wages along with utilities, upkeep and taxes. 

The Greybull Alliance Church has been a financial sponsor of The SHACK from the beginning but is starting to scale it back. “And rightfully so,” said Henderson. “We have been a burden on them.

“That’s another thing we’re going to have to make up,” he said.

Patrick said attendance at The SHACK is down, but not by much, from when it was consistently setting monthly records approximately five years ago.

Last school year, approximately 130 students visited the North Fifth Street location at least once.  So far this year, there have been about 100.  While most live in Greybull, the youth center does get some kids from Basin, Cody and as far away as Clark.

Patrick said The SHACK’s best nights are on the weekends, when as many as 25 show up to spend time with their friends. Some play video games while others enjoy card games or head outside to play volleyball.

“The thing that sells me is that kids are sold on The SHACK,” said Henderson toward the end of Monday’s meeting. “They feel a connection there. For some, it’s a home away from home.”

Putting the building on the market was just the first step. Henderson acknowledged will have some decisions to make if a serious buyer emerges.

Foremost among them would be what to do with the money.

Henderson said The SHACK doesn’t own the building it currently uses on North Sixth Street, which limits its potential to reinvest money from the sale in improvements.

The SHACK hasn’t ruled out keeping it and some or all of it, either.

“We can’t sit on this,” Henderson said. “We think that the community’s perception is that that’s what we’ve been doing — sitting on it for 20 years.

“That’s not entirely true because we’ve done a lot of work on the building, but right now, we are at a standstill.”