Generator — Summer 2023

the VAULTon MAIN
Entrepreneur infuses new life into old building
Jamie Olmer was only 21 when she bought a building in
her hometown of Creston.
It had tar paper covering the plaster walls and sunlight
shone in through the roof. Most of the boarded-up
windows were broken and others were bricked over. A part
of one wall had caved in and the building had significant
water damage.
But all she saw was potential. “I knew I had to try to save
it,” she said.
PURCHASING THE BUILDING
Olmer was working at Mark’s Custom Woodworking
in Creston in the summer of 2011. Owner Mark Korth also
owned the former Citizens State Bank across the street. He
bought it in 2005 when Central Valley Ag closed.
He no longer had use for the building and was thinking
of tearing it down.
Olmer — who was studying history in college — was
saddened by the thought. She had always admired the
building and wished someone would use it. Her mom, Lynn
Olmer and grandparents, Nancy and the late John Scheffler,
were also passionate about their town’s history and knew
the building was worth saving.
Olmer asked Korth for the keys to get a look at the inside
of the building. It was definitely in rough shape, but she
decided to ask if he would be interested in selling it.
“After all the years of hoping someone would use the
building, standing inside it that day, I realized that I could
do something about that,” she said.
A year later, the keys and building were hers at a cost of
$5,000. But it would have to wait a while for those muchneeded
repairs. Olmer had a few more years of college.
Then she traveled with the national service program
AmeriCorps for three years. After that was graduate school
and a then full-time job in 2020.
During that time, Olmer had been researching and
getting estimates for the repairs, so she knew that it was
going to be an expensive project. Now that she had a steady
income, it was time to get back to the building eight years
after buying it.
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