New Bohemia building to be restored with help of grant

A $50,000 federal grant will help breathe new life into the flood-damaged Suchy Building, at 1006 Third St. SE.

The Housing and Urban Development/Main Street Challenge Grant is a first for the new district, said Robyn Rieckhoff, executive director of the Czech Village/New Bohemia Main Street District.

Czech Village, in southwest Cedar Rapids, and New Bohemia, across the Iowa River in southeast Cedar Rapids, were selected last year to participate in Iowa's Urban Neighborhood District Program.

“The grant will help tremendously,” said Lijun Chadima, an owner of the building. The family-operated Thorland Co., owns five buildings in New Bohemia, all damaged in the 2008 flood.

Chadima said the family initially focused recovery efforts on the nearby Cherry Building, which houses numerous businesses.

Twelve feet of water inundated the Suchy building in June 2008, then the site of the H.D. Youth Center. The center temporarily has moved to the Jane Boyd Community House, 943 14th Ave. SE, and awaits word on a permanent site.

Chadima said the family will match the grant, from Jumpstart funds, to restore the Suchy building, which also had an upstairs apartment.

Cedar Rapids historian Mark Stoffer Hunter said the 1907 building was used by the Suchy family for a jewelry store, with the family living upstairs. After the store moved to Czech Village, the site became a tavern and operated under several names, including the Pink Elephant, he said.

The building is next door to what was the longtime White Elephant store, another building owned by the Chadima family and one of Cedar Rapids' oldest commercial sites. In the 1980s and 1990s, the Suchy building housed the Raven Inn, a restaurant owned by the late Don Novick.

Chadima said the site likely will return to its roots: once restored, a prospective tenant plans to open a restaurant there, featuring South American fusion cuisine.

The brick veneer building was mucked out and boarded up after the flood to await funding.

As one of the Main Street projects, architects sketched a facade makeover for the Suchy building, which showed what it would look like if restored to historic standards.