The owner of Cherokee Firearms is moving his business to the corner of Kansas Expressway and College Street, where a 75-year-old former feeding mill recently was demolished.
Nick Newman, who bought the old Hawkins Mill property
last year, plans to relocate his 1544 N. National Ave. gun store to the 1-acre site and add an indoor shooting range.
“There’s not many of them around. We get asked for that a lot,” he said of the gun range.
Newman hired Jack Ball Architects PC to design the $2 million, 9,000-square-foot store, which he said is targeting a November or December opening. He said Nabholz Construction Corp. likely would serve as general contractor, with engineering work by Olsson Associates Inc. Construction would begin after the city grants a grading permit to raise dirt in the flood plain area.
The move would more than quadruple Cherokee Firearms’ current 2,000-square-foot space near the intersection of National and Division Street. Newman’s plans include adding five employees to his current workforce of 10.
Newman said the site has a higher traffic count and is zoned commercial, which was preferable to his current business near residences.
“It was in the middle of the town, closer to the downtown area,” said Newman, who has operated Cherokee Firearms since 1988 and in its current location for six years. “I like that’s its actually on historic Route 66.”
The 1500 W. College St. property long housed Hawkins Mill but most recently was home to Aqua Terra and George & Joann’s Antique Mall. Amish contractors performed the demolition work on the 23,000-square-foot building and bought the wood for reuse. The property, which had been listed for sale at $175,000, has a 2016 taxable appraised value of $156,300, according to Greene county assessor records.
