The Essex school district wants to buy a bank.
KMA reports that Essex and Bank Iowa are discussing a land swap that would put the bank building under the school’s control. Essex wants to develop its culinary arts program, the superintendent told KMA, and a student-run restaurant would be part of that.
The present bank downtown doesn’t have a drive-through, and Bank Iowa is interested in getting one. It’s also right next door to Johnson Locker, which seems like a ripe opportunity for a really local food movement. The story doesn’t specify where the school land to be swapped is.
Essex has one restaurant — Garrison’s Tavern and Grill downtown — unless you want to count the Casey’s across the street from the school. (According to my notes from 2009, it was the nicest I’d seen, so it must have been among the first in Iowa to get the design with the expanded footprint.)