Through a public-private partnership between the City of Troy and a local real estate owner, new public restrooms will be coming to Downtown Troy for events that are held on the Square. 

The new bathrooms are part of the renovations ongoing at the building located at the corner of East Church Street and Market Street downtown. The building was previously the home of a gym, behind the current location of The Corner. 

The need for public restrooms became apparent with the increase of concerts, festivals, parades and other events in the Square. Reeves also emphasized the need for public restrooms due to many local businesses being closed during events on the square and not wanting to overwhelm those businesses – or their pluming – when they are open during events. 

“As time has gone on, and we’ve drawn larger and larger crowds, we’ve had to rent restroom trailers,” Troy Mayor Jason Reeves said. “That becomes expensive but we have to make sure we have some bathrooms available for public access for events like TroyFest and things of that nature.”

Reeves said the cost over time to rent the trailers has been significant and was not something that would be feasible to continue doing in the longterm. 

“It’s something that over a long period of time just isn’t really sustainable,” said Reeves. “Looking at it, it just made more sense and was a better investment for us to find a partner to work with to do this. It was necessary for us to have restrooms there and we feel like this is a better situation and makes more sense financially for the city.”

The city needed to enter into a public-private partnership for the restrooms due to the city being barred from constructing restrooms via provisions that were made when the land for the Square was deeded to the city. 

Troy native David Nelson owns the building and already had plans to renovate for future use. So, it made sense for him, too.

“The City of Troy has done a great job of hosting events downtown and helping to create a great atmosphere and promoting local businesses,” Nelson said. “The City of Troy is making these events more accommodating by providing a permanent solution to temporary restrooms used in the past.”

As a result, the city is funding the restroom construction. Reeves said the city has a maximum of $200,000 of investment in the project. A door leading to the outside is in place and will be the entrance for the public during events. When the city isn’t hosting events, the restrooms will be locked for safety reasons.

“For safety reasons I think that’s important,” said Reeves. “Any time we have an event on the Square we have our police department there to keep people safe and we will do a sweep after every event to make sure everything is safe and locked up and taken care of.” 

Nelson said that the rest of the building is being renovated in an effort to attract a full-time tenant.

“The remainder of the building is being finished out with the improvements necessary to attract a full-time tenant to occupy the space,” he said. “It will be available for short-term rentals as an event space in the meantime.”

Nelson said his decision to invest in the property was done to try and continue the improvements and additions that have been made to the downtown area the last several years.

“The goal is to improve the building in a way that doesn’t take away from its downtown charm, while giving it the modern conveniences necessary to attract businesses,” Nelson emphasized. “My wife, Candace, has done a great job of designing the exterior and interior, including the restrooms. It is our hope that the building will be a staple for the downtown area that will attract patrons to the area and help generate more activity for downtown businesses.

“We are really excited about the improvements that have been done around the square with the additions of The Corner, Heritage 1843, Moe’s BBQ and others. The downtown area is a great place for the people of Troy to come together and celebrate our community atmosphere. We hope that improvements made to this building will just be the next improvement in the downtown district with many more to come.”

Reeves said the target date for the opening of the restrooms is TroyFest in April, depending on construction delays that may pop up.

“I really think this is a positive for the downtown area and I think it’s going to help continue developing that corner,” Reeves said. “We think it’ll be very positive thing for the entire downtown community.”