The new and future owners of the Rickman Conference Center are still laying plans for their new acquisition, including relocated quarry operations and a new charitable partnership.
F&F Development, whose subsidiary is Farmer Holding Company, closed on a sale of the Rickman Conference Center by the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) of Mid-America (CCMA) for $1.1 million last week. Farmer Holding Company will use a portion of the roughly 200-acre property for its own operations and will partner with the HALO Foundation for use of the remaining land and buildings.
The HALO Foundation works internationally to empower youth, and domestically supports programming for at-risk youth. HALO Jefferson City, a local HALO center, launched in 2012 by partnering with Jefferson City High School, the foster care system and alternative schools to provide art therapy and programs for at-risk and low-income youth.
"They're a great charitable organization, and they do a great job helping at-risk youth in need in Jefferson City, so we're very happy to help them accomplish their mission," said Kirk Farmer, of Farmer Holding Company. "We knew that they had identified a need in Jefferson City of kids that for one reason or another find themselves without a place to call home - over 135 of them at any given time. We're just trying to work with them to get these kids in a safe place and out of the unsafe environment that some of them are in."
Representatives of the HALO Foundation declined to share further details at this time, but plan to release more information soon.
"We are so grateful for this opportunity and excited to share more about it in the coming weeks," said Rebecca Welsh, founder of the HALO Foundation.
Farmer Holding Company will divert about 125 acres of the property for HALO's use, eventually donating the land to the HALO Foundation. The company plans to keep about 50 acres for its quarry operations and asphalt plant to be relocated from the future site of the Special Olympics of Missouri Training for Life campus on nearby Christy Drive - land also donated by Farmer Holding Company alongside property the company plans to redevelop.
"We'll have to move our operations eventually, and we're hopeful that this can be the final home for those operations once the Special Olympics is built," Farmer said.
As for the Rickman property's remaining 20 highway-front acres, Farmer Holding Company has set them aside for potential redevelopment.
"It wouldn't be a commercial retail development like what's going on with Sam's Club," Farmer said. (Farmer Holding Company also is responsible for redeveloping commercial Jefferson City properties like the Stoneridge Parkway area, which is home to stores including Sam's Club and Kohl's.) "We would look for opportunities that might come along to build something, whatever that might be. It's got good highway visibility, and we'll just see what happens with it."
The CCMA had owned the property since the early 1960s. Over the years, it has hosted a church office, various youth conferences and camps, and the Missouri School of Religion, now known as the Mid-America Center for Ministry.
A task force of the church's regional office studied possible options for the property in 2013-14, recommending in 2014 that it be sold, according to a letter written by regional moderator Guy Adams and released on the CCMA website. Because the CCMA had initial direct conversations with Farmer Holding Company in early 2015, the church did not list the property with a commercial real estate agent, Adams said in the letter, noting the church had expected the sale to take two to five years.
"Given our difficult decision to sell the Rickman property, this is a very positive outcome," Adams said in the letter. "Many years of wonderful ministry occurred at the Rickman Center. Thanks be to God for all those years! May we all look forward to continuing and renewing these ministries in new ways, and to creating and nurturing many new ones."
The letter notes that existing leases at the property will be continued, including the local Disciples' congregation, Table of Grace, which will continue operating on the site.
The CCMA will transfer $1 million of the profit from the sale to an endowment-type account called the Rickman Legacy Fund, with 75 percent of the distribution going to Mid-America youth and outdoor ministries and 25 percent to Mid-America leadership, the letter notes. The remaining $100,000 from the $1.1 million sale will help restore the CCMA's operating reserve to "a sound fiscal position" after it had been "diminished to a level that was much less than optimal."
A representative of the CCMA did not return calls from the News Tribune requesting further information.