Giant Moscow granaries to stay put

MOSCOW - The historic Jackson Street grain elevators that tower above the downtown Moscow skyline have a new owner, and he says the structures aren't going anywhere.

"You could lose some of the heart and soul that makes Moscow if you knock them down and turn them into something else," said Andrew Crapuchettes, the new owner of the elevators. The sale was finalized late last week.

The sale price for the structures has not been released, but the original asking price of $1.1 million was placed on the property by the former owner, Anderson Group LLC, more than a year and a half ago.

"It's like a big tin can," Crapuchettes said, strolling through his newly acquired 60-foot-wide and 100-foot-tall steel-plated cylinder. "I own more bird poop and concrete than anyone in Moscow."

Crapuchettes said he doesn't have immediate plans as to what will inhabit the old agriculture storage facility.

"Fat Rocket Pancake House" was one idea he had when he first saw the tall, old grain elevators.

"I've always had a vision of having a pancake house and putting it in the silo and put holes and fins on it," Crapuchettes said. "It would look like a fat rocket; I don't know if that will ever happen."

More seriously, he said he had a friend pitched placing refurbished shipping containers around the elevators and creating a food market of sorts.

"You turn them into kitchens and they are basically permanent food trucks," Crapuchettes said. "You can have a village of five or six of them."

A circular library with walls lined with books is another idea from one of his friends.

Crapuchettes said he's just pondering possibilities, but one thing is clear, the elevators won't be demolished.

Despite being an elder at Christ Church and having former ties to New Saint Andrews College, which is expanding into the CJ's Nightclub building in downtown Moscow, Crapuchettes said those ties didn't influence his purchase.

"I'm a Christian, you can't remove that from who I am; I'm not buying it for the church or the school or any of the ministries, I'm continuing to make Moscow a cool and beautiful place," he said.

Former owner Clayton Anderson said he's happy to sell the structures to someone who will preserve a piece of Moscow's history.

"Those were the people we were looking for," Anderson said.

The grain elevators were to be knocked down in 2007, and Anderson and his son John Anderson stepped up and purchased the property two days before the cylinders were scheduled to square off with the wrecking ball.

"It's important to maintain those silos and the agriculture heritage that Moscow has," the elder Anderson said. "That's about the last symbol left in town."

Anderson said Anderson Group LLC wasn't able to move forward financially with the development.

"We were able to save them, but saving them wasn't getting anywhere," he said.

Anderson said his team tried to make it work, at one point attempting to sell the property to Crites Seed Inc., a business adjacent to the property, but the deal didn't pan out.

Urban Renewal Agency Executive Director Bill Belknap said a conditional-use permit for the property was never submitted to the city, but the city did express concern about an agricultural use in a commercial district.

The grain elevators rest in the 22-acre core of the Legacy Crossing urban renewal district, formed in 2008.

That designation as an urban renewal district allows property tax revenue from new development in the area to be funneled to infrastructure improvements in the district.

The elevators are massive and climb higher into the Moscow sky than most buildings in the city.

Belknap said in Moscow building height restriction is 65 feet, unless otherwise permitted by the city. However, the elevators are grandfathered in.

One of the buildings is a 115-foot-tall concrete cylinder, 42 feet in diameter.

Another is a seven-pack of connected concrete grain elevators, 20 feet in diameter and all standing 100 feet tall.

The third is a steel-plate structure that stretches 60 feet in diameter and 100 feet tall.

The last is the oldest of the group and was built more than 100 years ago. The former concrete distribution center is 40 feet by 40 feet and 100 feet tall, capped with a 25-foot-by-25-foot two-story structure on top.

"It's an industrial concrete structure - it will have it's challenges," Belknap said.

Crapuchettes said the possibilities are endless with the new property.

"If you just Google 'refurbished silo pictures,' there are some unbelievable things people have accomplished."

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Babcock may be contacted at jbabcock@lmtribune.com or at (208) 848-2275.