Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

Independent Student Newspaper Since 1969

The Badger Herald

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Mansion Hill hears Bethel Lutheran presentation

Although only baseline details have been planned out for the proposed Bethel Lutheran Church Community Center, the proposal’s developers presented their plans for the project at a community meeting Wednesday evening.

Mansion Hill residents were asked to provide feedback on the preliminary designs for the construction of an additional building that would be used to provide services and programs for a number of different groups and individuals.

The developers said they would like to make the center the new meeting place for some of the organizations that currently offer space to programs such as daycare, counseling programs for those in transition from incarceration and a food shelf that feeds around 3,000 families a year, Bethel’s Director of Development Alice Mowbray said.

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“What we think we need to do to keep ourselves viable in the future is to create a community center,” Mowbray said.

The church has proposed building the center where their parking lot now sits, but in order to do so, a historic house that also calls that space home would have to be removed and relocated.

Mowbray said the Steensland house is one of the many historic houses in the area that make the neighborhood unique, but said the church still would not be able to utilize the structure for their needs.

Mowbray said Bethel needs to find a buyer for the house and a location to place the structure before it can consider any further concrete plans for the community center. She said the church is experiencing difficulty with the relocation process and has already had a prospective buyer fall through.

A second location is now being considered for the house, and the church is currently in in the process of working out a deal with the owner of the property, Mowbray said. She said the process was still “very much in the talking and negotiation stages,” but project manager Randy Alexander said he was reluctant to provide further details because the deal has not yet been finalized.

“We kept coming back to the Steensland house and there was no way that it could serve the needs of the community,” Alexander said. “Now, we have to wait for the owner to step forward and say what he wants to do with it.”

If this deal does not go through, the church would most likely need to start considering areas outside of the Mansion Hill district to move the house, Alexander said.

Mansion Hill neighborhood committee chair Gene Devitt said moving the house outside the district would be a great cause for concern to the residents of the district who would like to see the historic neighborhood remain intact.

“When they bought the property [for the church] they agreed to keep the house where it is,” Devitt said talking to members at the meeting. “Remember that it’s not one or the other, the neighborhood can always oppose this.”

Bethel has started to plan the layout and architecture of the community center and has begun to estimate an operating budget, but Mowbray and Alexander said the plans were “by no means set in stone.” They said they were hopeful the community would provide honest feedback for the proposal in the near future.

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