Sheldon, Iowa is getting a new dental office.

Dentist Chad Brown took possession of the former Radio & TV Center on December 17, 2007, and work to remodel the downtown building started that day. He purchased the building from retiring owners Henry and Lila Ann Kiers of Sheldon. The electronics portion of that retail business now is being operated out of a section of the basement of Downtown Hardware by their grandson, Cody Kiers of Hull, IA.

“I know there is a need,” Brown said, noting that Sheldon has seen the retirement of two longtime dentists in the last few years. “There’s really a need for dentists everywhere barring some metropolitan areas. Rural areas, particularly in the Midwest, are really dentist-starved. You could pick a town anywhere around here, and they need a dentist – really, it doesn’t matter. I know that Sheldon is really under-served.”

He will be the third dentist in Sheldon.

Brown, 36, has lived in Sheldon for nearly a decade since graduating from Creighton University School of Dentistry in Omaha, NE in 1998. He worked as a dentist in northwest Iowa for nearly nine years before he sought to open a dental office in the former Sheldon Union Depot.

The Sheldon City Council approved the sale of the depot to Brown for $10,000 in March 2006 and approved a tax increment financing rebate incentive package in May 2006. However, Brown said he was not able to get the project put together there and the ownership of the property stayed with the city of Sheldon.

“Really, in the long run, I’m glad that I’ve ended up where I’m at,” Brown said. “One of the things that I’ve always wanted to do is take an old building and restore it. It’s just kind of one of those. I’ve always thought these downtowns – these small towns – some of these building are great old buildings, and sometimes they sit vacant or they just don’t get used; they don’t get kept up the way they should. In a way, I’m happy that I’m able to sort of give this building new life.”

He said the building has many advantages with its nearly 4,000 square feet of space, its visibility and its location at an anchor position in the downtown at the corner of Ninth Street and Third Avenue.

“It’s a great location,” he said.

J&T Construction of Sheldon is serving as the general contractor for the project.

Brown said the renovation effort will include a complete gutting of the interior of the building and remaking it into usable dental office space. He said additional storefront improvements might be done in the future.

“We’re trying to put together a dental office that’s a little different looking than what most people would think is normal,” he said. “It’s going to be pretty open. It’s going to be kind of a warehouse, sort of loft feel inside, as far as the design of it goes.”

Brown said three people will work with him in the dental office – a receptionist, and assistant and a hygienist.

By Derrick Vander Waal, Managing Editor, Sheldon Mail-Sun