JOPLIN, Mo. — Two and a half million visits – that is the attention Downtown Joplin attracted last year. Now, a breakdown of those trends is aiming to help find a new way to use Union Depot.

“So we’re looking at anywhere from 6.1 to $6.7 million,” said Joe Borgstrom, Place+Main Advisors.

The potential cost to redevelop Joplin’s Union Depot.

“One of the things about historic buildings, you don’t always know what you’re gonna find till you find it,” said Borgstrom.

Joe Borgstrom with Place and Main Advisors is looking to the future of the former train station and how it could be used.

“There’s a potential for a brew pub or distillery or some sort of drinking establishment out there. You know, the numbers reflected that does certainly as a possibility. Look at a mix of uses including office and retail. We think there’s a number of types of retail that can be successful there,” said Borgstrom.

Or it could be something completely unique to the area.

“The potential of you know, hosting a hotel at some point. Utilizing of course, the history of the depot but using outside rail cars to park perhaps somewhere on property or nearby that can be converted. There’s about a dozen of them across the country where they use rail cars as hotel rooms,” said Borgstrom.

Union Depot is owned by the state, which is working with the Downtown Joplin Alliance to market it for sale.

“We’re just trying to get some of the hurdles out of the way of what does the community want it to be? What could it be what you know, what, how might it work? What’s the structure, what’s the environmental?” said Lori Haun, Downtown Joplin Alliance Exec. Dir.

The release of the report means they’ll start working with developers interested in working on the project.

They plan to take bids through next February.

“We’re ready for developers to really take a hard look at what we put together and to come up with with what they want to do with it to come back and say here’s, we’re interested. Here’s what we want to do, because the developers still going to have to do a lot of their own research and their own work to put together an effective package for this property,” said Haun.