At the end of a long and tedious work session of the Albany City Council Monday, Councilman Ray Kopczynski mentioned that Christmas lights had been installed at the former Cumberland Church. Now that, I thought, was worth taking a look.
Last time I saw the inside of the former Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Albany it was a jumbled mess, used for storage and not much else. As the video below shows, on Saturday the inside was still old and worn, but picked up and clean.
The mayor’s work group on historic Albany properties is making headway on its two projects: moving and restoring the former Cumberland Presbyterian Church and contacting the Postal Service about finding another site for its downtown post office.
Now that an Albany work group has recommended where the old Main Street church should be moved and partially restored, the hard part of this venture begins: Designing the new site and coming up with the money.
Empty business buildings around town were tossed around as possible locations if the city gets the Albany Post Office to move, and the former Safeway at Calapooia Street and Pacific Boulevard, with ample parking, emerged as the leading candidate.
If the old Main Street church in Albany is going to be moved, it might go to one of three possible city-owned sites, members of Mayor Sharon Konopa’s work group on “historic properties” have suggested.
The Albany mayor’s work group studying the future of an historic church at Main Street and Santiam Road now is looking into having the structure moved rather than fixed up in place or, presumably, demolished. That’s according to a summary of the group’s discussion Monday.
If anybody is willing to take on the former Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Albany, the city council wants to find out. So council members agreed on Monday to have the staff whip up a request for proposals from anyone who has ideas about the 124-year-old building, which is badly in need of serious and […]
The former Cumberland Presbyterian Church, 124 years old, is in the news again as the city of Albany is trying to decide how to unload the property and get the historic structure restored at the same time.
Cumberland church: Bigger costs on horizon
It’s been more than a year since the Albany City Council voted to try to get rid of the former Cumberland Presbyterian Church it owns at Main Street and Santiam Road. Volunteers have been working on saving the building, and now the council faces a decision on whether to spend money on major repairs.
Tags: cumberland church, Main Street project