Vanessa and Jeff Cook proposed their business plan to rent the first floor of the former Salvation Army building on Monroe Street Thursday night at a Recreation and Public Property Committee Meeting.
They proposed a business called Stir Crazy Family Play Park, which would have giant inflatables, a kid-sized rock wall and a small play area for children 3 years and younger.
"My passion has always been working with children," Vanessa Cook said. "This idea came from me being a trapped mom."
She said during the winter, she had nothing for her children to do to get them out of the house.
"There has to be a place in Tiffin where you can run these children to tire them out," she said. "And we had a hard time finding that. We would literally take them to the Tiffin mall, just to make them run around, to tire them out."
Her idea for a family play park became more of a reality when she won a $10,000 grant from the New Business Plan Competition, which was sponsored by Tiffin Tomorrow, Tiffin Charitable Trust, Tiffin University and Heidelberg University, she said.
She said she is willing to rent the vacant building, clean it and pay utilities, which the city currently pays.
She said the revenue generated would be a good source of income for the city.
Currently, the city is exempted from paying property taxes on the building, Law Director Brent Howard said.
With the current value of the building, taxes would about $9,300 a year, but Howard said the taxes could potentially be lowered to as low as $1,500 if the building's value gets lowered to $75,000, which is what the city paid for it.
Committee chair Brian Bilger said Tiffin Municipal Court Judge Mark Repp is excited about the potential business and supports it.
Bilger said in the event of something going wrong with the building, the Cooks would be liable because the city does not have the funds to pay for it.
Howard said he is going to prepare a lease proposal and city council is to vote on it. The cost and details of the lease are to determined.
