The little guy who may be key to new library

Bob Himes is the little guy, the one with the smallest piece of desirable property for a new library.

Mostly, it's corporate types in the mix. Of the three hottest blocks of real estate now being considered for a $45 million library, one is owned by Gazette Communications, another by insurance and financial-services firm TrueNorth and most of the third has been bought up in recent years by investment company St. Martin Land Co.

St. Martin doesn't own the entire block for one simple reason: Himes. He didn't care for the company or its offer when it tried to buy him out a few years ago.

As city officials negotiate with the corporations for a possible property purchase, they're doing the same with Himes, owner of Bob's Wholesale Cars, at the corner of First Avenue and Eighth Street SE.

In Himes, the city finds a 48-year-old graduate of Wilson Junior High School and a father of four kids, whose youngest two, ages 5 and 7, love to go to the library.

“I think a new library for Cedar Rapids is important,” the used-car dealer says, “and I think this is probably a good spot. It's up on a hill, it's not going to get wet (from a flood) and you got the two interstate ramps here.”

The attributes he cites are the reason the city's library board ranked the block among its top two choices. The block, which once housed the Emerald Knights Drum and Bugle Corps, sits between First and Second avenues and Seventh and Eighth streets SE. The board will make its final pick next week and send it on to the City Council.

Himes describes himself as a willing seller who would prefer to stay put.

“No, I'm not excited about moving,” he says. “It's a lot of work. I planned on being here until I died. I thought this would be the last spot where I'd ever move.”

He still can't entirely believe he got here from where he started.

Not bothering to make it through high school, Himes drank and messed with drugs in sufficient amounts to land him in and out of prison during his 20s. Finally, a stint at an inpatient substance-abuse treatment center 20 years ago straightened him out and kept him on his job as a union carpenter. There, a fellow worker offered him a car trunk full of tattoo equipment.

Himes tattooed friends for a while on the side and then opened his own shop on Ellis Boulevard NW. He later moved the shop to the Coe College neighborhood and then sold it to his brother-in-law to get into the used-car business about 12 years ago.

The First Avenue SE spot is the fourth one for his car lot and the first he has owned. He bought the place four years ago for $265,000 and borrowed another $45,000 to renovate.

“I never dreamed of ever owing any kind of money like that,” Himes says, “but I was excited about coming here, cleaning it up, making it look nice and putting nice cars out here.”

It's been a “prime” spot to sell cars, he says.

Shortly after setting up, he decided to make an offer on the vacant land next door. A bank across the street owned it at the time, and the same day he inquired, he says, St. Martin Land Co. was signing papers to snatch it up.

Himes says he had no idea that his property would be anything but his car lot until recently, when someone read about the library's plans and told his wife that Bob's Wholesale Cars might be holding up the plan. Himes called the city the next day to say that would not be the case.

“I'm not asking for a whole bunch of money,” he says. “I'm just asking what's fair. I'm just trying to relocate and help the city at the same time. I'm not trying to retire off this, but I don't want to go backwards, either.”