City Extends Eggemeyer One More Chance to Open Agriculture Museum Downtown

The San Angelo City Council is giving downtown entrepreneur Eric Eggemeyer another chance to launch his dream of opening an agriculture museum on city property in downtown San Angelo. The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts may be able to assist, said museum director Howard Taylor.

Eggemeyer is the general manager of his family’s business, Eggemeyer’s General Store at 35 E. Concho Ave. downtown. The museum is a labor of love for him.

In 2005, the city entered into an agreement with Eggemeyer to lease a portion (roughly less than a third of an acre) of the Bart DeWitt Park. The property extends from adjacent property that the Eggemeyer family owns. It has been almost 10 years since that agreement was made. It has had ups and downs, but the progress on the museum at this point may be headed in the right direction as city council discussed earlier this month.

Driving down Oakes St. you may have noticed old farm equipment parked in the grass behind the gates on the small piece of land that sits behind the Concho Crossing Shopping Center. This is the site of Eggemeyer's project.

 “I would like to point out that from the very beginning we have been supportive of this concept; it’s a wonderful idea,” said Carl White, City Parks and Recreation Director, after giving a brief history of the saga of the lease agreement between the city and Eggemeyer. “Mr. Eggemeyer is a great idea person. The only issue here is the lease; the vehicle we use to get there and meet that concept has not worked.”

White said as a steward of the taxpayers' land, he is determined that the lease agreement benefits the city, whether that is through rent, tourism or public benefit.  The city council has gone back and forth over the years over Eggemeyer’s project, terminating and reinstating the lease. In February, the council voted 4-2 to terminate the lease permanently due to the fact that Eggemeyer has continually not met the original terms of the lease agreement signed 10 years ago.

The terms of the lease state that the property is to serve as a multi-use facility to increase tourism and bring more events to the downtown area. It states the lessee will bring in frontiersman’s demonstrations that would have been typical in the late 1800s and early 1900s, like barn raising, log home construction, blacksmithing, haymaking and sheep shearing.

The lease itself was initially for five years, but has a holdover clause in place allowing a month-to-month arrangement that has allowed Eggemeyer to continue to rent it for $1 dollar per month.

In October of 2013, the city exercised its right to terminate the month-to-month arrangement since the general concept had not been met in the eight years prior. Eggemeyer appealed the decision and appeared before the Parks and Recreation Advisory Board (PRAB). The board gave Eggemeyer more time and added some things to the list of tasks to fulfill the lease.  On a recommendation from the PRAB, the city ended up rescinding the termination notice and giving Eggemeyer over a year to meet the terms of the original lease, while reporting progress to council bi-monthly.

This week, White recommended terminating the lease, while not requiring any modifications be done to the property for a six- to 12-month period to provide time to consider a nonprofit organization to meet the general concept of what was planned originally.

Can SAMFA Help?

“I became aware of [the project] about two years ago, even though it’s been going on for a lot longer than that,” said Howard Taylor, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts Director. “I had to stop one day and have a conversation with the Eggemeyers and find out what was going on. I became very excited about the potential this holds for our downtown area. The investments that the Eggemeyers have made are truly astonishing.”

Taylor said he had to see documentation, but said that the Eggemeyers claim to have invested over $250,000 at that site already. Renovations that include building a retaining wall and adding access ramps as well as a building specifically designated for demonstrations have been personally invested in by the Eggemeyers. Taylor pointed out that the museum would be a family oriented place that would tie in with a project SAMFA is working on.

“I think the real difficulty with this project has been that there are very few concepts like it anywhere in the country that have been entirely done privately,” Taylor said. “So we have proposed to create this nonprofit entity, we have created bylaws, [and we] have looked at creating a board of directors and officially incorporating and working with Eric.”

Council members were given a packet of information about the proposed nonprofit organization at the beginning of the meeting.

There was a general consensus among the council that the new path of organizing as a nonprofit organization was moving in the right direction and everyone wants it to succeed. The council asked Taylor and Eggemeyer to hammer out the details and specifics for the nonprofit organization proposed to finally construct and operate the museum.