A little more than a year after opening, the inside of the James E. Snow Professional Building is all filled up.

Last week, the members of the Dowagiac City Council approved a lease with the Van Buren/Cass County Health Department for 2,400 square feet on the first floor of downtown office complex. The health department, which already occupies the entire second floor with its dental clinic, plans on using the additional space to provide greater community health services to the greater Dowagiac area.

The clinic will join area businesses Advanced Dermatology and May, Oberbell, Lorber on the ground level of the Snow Building, located at the corner of Main and Front streets downtown. The city signed leases with the dermatology clinic and law firm last year, and has been working on building the office spaces for the businesses to use to establish a presence in Dowagiac.

According to the city manager, construction work for the Advanced Dermatology office is complete, with all that remains for the clinic employees to finally move it. At the same time, work is coming along with the May, Oberbell, Lorber space, with electric, plumbing and heating already in place.

Once these two offices, along with the new space for the health department, are in place, the Snow Building will finally emerge as a the hub for commerce and activity the city had envisioned since breaking ground several years ago.

In just a single location, downtown will have a place for residents and visitors to have legal, medical and dental consultation and work performed, without having to travels miles outside of the city.

In addition, the city’s work to locate and work out deal with the new tenets will also help ensure the future of the complex, which opened in fall of 2014. With three tenets soon to reside inside the building, the city will begin receiving rent money which will go toward paying utilities and other costs needed to keep the structure up and running, which will help lower the burden placed on local taxpayers.

No stranger to owning and operating properties around town, the initial success of the Snow Building just shows that the city hasn’t lost its Midas touch when it comes to turning their real estate ventures into gold. On top of the growth seen in other areas of the city’s business community, seeing our local government’s investments pay off is pleasing to see, and instills hope that other businesses will follow suit and roll the dice on our town.

We congratulate the city on reaching this new milestone, and hope they continue to succeed in their efforts to improve our community.

Opinions expressed are those of the editorial board consisting of Publisher Michael Caldwell and editors Ambrosia Neldon, Craig Haupert, Ted Yoakum and Scott Novak.