News Photo by Temi Fadayomi The Grambau Education Center in Rogers City is pictured on Oct. 26.

ROGERS CITY — The Grambau Education Center’s new owner said he is making progress toward preserving the building.

“Phase one is preserving it, and I have a plan for that and I’m working on it diligently and aggressively,” said the building’s new owner, David Dargis. “I don’t have the end game but I have faith and confidence in this building and people.”

According to Dargis, since officially obtaining control of the building in late September, he and his team have made progress in cleaning up the building.

That included removing a lot of the furniture from inside the building and either selling it to a local daycare or sending it to be recycled, removing and clearing up debris, cleaning up the building’s outside perimeter by trimming trees and cutting grass, and myriad of other tasks.

“We’ve cleaned up a lot, we got heat going through the whole office area,” Dargis said. ‘We got somebody from Cheboygan fixing the roof before fall so that it won’t leak. We’ve done extensive grounds work, trimmed up the trees, and raked up all the stuff that was there for so long. I think we got like a third of it cleaned out, as far as the stuff that needs to be done.”

Despite still being in the early stages of the building’s renovations and maintenance, Dargis claimed that there is already a lot of interest in the property from people wanting to buy it.

However, because negotiations are still ongoing, he declined to share the names of any of the interested parties.

“We’ve had a lot of interest, more than I really anticipated,” said Dargis. “I have three statewide organizations that have an interest.”

Dargis says that he hopes to have most of the preliminary maintenance taken care of soon and hopes to hold an open house in December to show the public what he’s done.

The Rogers City Area Schools Board of Education sold the building to Dargis for $5,000 on Aug. 14.