Inside McKee Hall, the old dorm room numbers are still painted on the original doors. Those doors don't open anymore. They were kept as false doors when the building became apartments, and the former dining hall down the corridor is now a community room with an internet café and co-working space. "You can't duplicate that," Brian Hollenback, CEO of Economic Growth Corp., told Shaw Local about those doors.
Most people in Mount Carroll haven't seen them. Next Thursday, Nov. 12, Shimer Square marks one year since its ribbon cutting. In the months since, the hilltop campus has come back as a place where people live, work and drop off their kids. The buildings meant for everyone else are a different matter. The café, the microbrewery, the event venue, the theater space and the recreation center all still exist as letters of intent or plans, and the campus is closed to the general public until further notice because of ongoing construction.
So the first year finished the private half of the campus. The public half is the next phase.
What the first year actually finished
Economic Growth Corp., which calls itself GROWTH, took possession of the 14-acre campus on Dec. 31, 2018. The college had left in 1978, and the hilltop sat mostly empty for four decades after that. The order of the work shows what the developer put first:
- Sawyer House was rehabilitated first and became the administrative hub, with co-working space added later.
- The front entry gate was restored next.
- Dezendorf Hall, built in 1962, took its first residents during the first week of November 2025.
- McKee Hall and Hostetter Hall, both from 1906, filled out the residential core. Together the three halls hold 51 apartments.
- Honey Bee Child Development Center, a new building, started enrolling on Sept. 8, 2026, and began operating on Sept. 21.
Estes Construction of Davenport, Iowa, did the construction work as general contractor, with Andy Fisher directing it for GROWTH.
Honey Bee is the newest addition, and it's the piece that reaches furthest past the apartment residents. The center is run by 4-C Community Coordinated Child Care. It opened with classrooms for ages 2 to 5, and the Shimer Square homepage says rooms for children 2 and under will open soon. The child care center wasn't in the original plan. City officials suggested it, and GROWTH added a new building for it.
The Resource Center in Sawyer House also serves people beyond the apartment residents. It offers HUD-approved housing counseling and small-business lending across the county. Its hours are by appointment and select times, not walk-in.
The year's public-facing moments were an apartment open house on Feb. 9 and a family and community gathering on April 14 at the future Honey Bee center, months before it opened. Both centered on the private half of the campus.
The buildings Mount Carroll will walk into
The buildings most people remember from Shimer's college years are the ones still waiting. GROWTH's redevelopment page lists where each one stands.
| Building | Planned use | Status on GROWTH's site |
|---|---|---|
| Howe Hall | Local microbrewery, art space and boutique lodging | Signed letter of intent |
| Campbell Library, built 1925 | Café and multipurpose space | Signed letter of intent |
| Dearborn Hall | Before- and after-school child care for school-age kids | Identified for child care expansion |
| Tolman Hall | Entertainment and special event venue | Being reimagined |
| Metcalf Hall | Theater, visual arts, performances and lectures | Identified |
| Gymnasium | Adaptive reuse recreation center | Imagined future use |
Howe Hall was the college's cafeteria and a dormitory. Campbell Library was a center of campus study for decades. Each of these buildings has a public use planned for it. If the plans hold, people will stop on the hill for a beer, a coffee, a show or a game of pickup basketball, without ever having to live or work there.
On that page, Howe Hall and Campbell Library are the only two marked "Signed Letter of Intent." The Shimer Square homepage also names Hathaway Hall among the next buildings and sums up what's on the horizon as "coffee, a cafe and collective, more housing."
Why 2027 is the next date on the calendar
The homepage says GROWTH is spending this year building up efforts for more historic buildings, with construction on the next phase "aimed for the next phase to begin sometime in 2027, subject to Historic Review." A May 2026 brochure names Howe Hall, Campbell Library and Tolman Hall as the 2027 investments that will bring small businesses, coffee and a café to the campus. The same brochure describes a fundraising effort of more than $12.5 million running through 2026 to pay for that expansion.
There's a smaller piece too. The brochure also promised a mobile coffee unit on campus in 2026. The homepage's current list of completed work covers the gate, Sawyer House, the three residential halls and Honey Bee. Coffee shows up only in the list of what comes next.
Ownership is part of what sets the pace. GROWTH's redevelopment page says the buildings have to stay in its name for a five-year federal Historic Tax Credit compliance period. During that time, an operator can lease a building or negotiate terms to buy it after the compliance period ends, at a price that excludes the value of improvements the operator made. The page also says plainly that "not every project at Shimer Square needs to be led by GROWTH." That makes the café, the brewery and the venue depend on local operators willing to invest in a building they won't own right away. If you've thought about opening something on the hill, that page is GROWTH's own description of the terms. Talk with your own attorney or accountant before acting on anything like it, since this post is general information and not legal or financial advice.
What the campus used to host, and what it will again
The hill was a gathering place before any apartments existed. In 2019, weeks after GROWTH bought the property, it partnered with the Mayfest Committee to bring the festival back to campus. Residents voted on newspaper ballots to name the campus that same year. In 2022, GROWTH invited the community to Mayfest to kick off Shimer Square's first redevelopment phase. Then construction picked up, and the events page says Mayfest took a break from the campus while the work continued.
Beth Payne, GROWTH's vice president, framed the long-term goal for Shaw Local this way:
"The goal is for every single building, to our best ability, to be redeveloped and activated with things that we know are going to fit the community."
In the same interview, she called the town's current stretch "a real exciting time." She pointed to upcoming community meetings on Mount Carroll's future and to the William J. Davis Community Center. The Davis Center, at 631 South East Street, has a gym, an indoor walking track, multipurpose rooms, a group fitness room and weight space. Its calendar includes a regular morning Coffee and Community gathering. Until the hill reopens, much of the community gathering Shimer Square plans to host happens at the Davis Center and around the courthouse square.
Watching the hill from here
For now, you can follow Shimer Square through what GROWTH posts. The Shimer Square homepage carries the construction timeline. The redevelopment sites page shows each building's status, and the press releases and updates page is where events like the open house and the Honey Bee gathering were announced.
The Campus Advocate page says GROWTH is looking for local volunteers to help keep the campus clean, picking up litter and clearing debris such as fallen twigs from the sidewalks. Volunteers get campus access once they're on the sign-up sheet. Right now, that's the main way someone without an apartment or a child at Honey Bee can walk the grounds before the 2027 phase begins.
The next date to watch is the start of construction on Howe Hall, Campbell Library and Tolman Hall, which GROWTH has aimed for 2027, subject to historic review.
At Sullivan Realty, we're based just up the road in Stockton, and we follow projects like this across Carroll County because they shape what these towns look like for the people who already call them home. If you have questions about Mount Carroll or what's changing around the old campus, we're glad to talk it through. Contact Us.
