City Beat: Gibson asks for funds for church relocation

In the April 17 City Council meeting, Mayor Pro Tem Gary Gibson asked city officials to set aside $5,000 to preserve Washington Avenue Baptist Church's stained glass windows for relocation. Church representatives and Historic Properties of Springfield Inc. had applied for Community Development Block Grant funding to relocate the church to serve as a community center, but theirs was not among the 14 applications recommended for funding.

If efforts to relocate it are not successful, the church will be demolished in September to make way for a new science building for Drury University.

Washington Avenue Baptist Church donated the property it sits on to Drury in exchange for Drury's purchase, on the church's behalf, of the Boulevard Baptist Church property at 1722 N. National. The exchange took place around Christmas 1999, according to Rev. Maurice Tate, of Washington Avenue Baptist Church.

If the building is destroyed, the congregation will have salvage rights and plans to take the stained glass windows to the new facility.

Council held a public hearing on the bill that will allocate the 2000 CDBG funds, and council will vote on the issue May 1. Washington Avenue Baptist Church applied for up to $30,000 in CDBG funding to preserve and move the 115-year-old church from its location at 729 N. Washington to a location in the Jordan Valley Park area. The cost to relocate the church is estimated at $550,000.

"The $5,000 is in support of our project to relocate the building and put it into an adaptive reuse as a community resource center, owned by a not-for-profit organization," said HPSI President Richard Burton.

Burton said he is confident the church will receive other funding to relocate, citing a $1 million historic building preservation fund in Jefferson City the church also applied for. Council discussed the $5,000 request further at an April 18 luncheon and tabled the issue until church representatives could provide more information.

In other business, council held public hearings on a bill to annex the 3300 block of West Sunshine into the city limits and a bill to place the southwest quadrant of the I-44 and U.S. 65 intersection within the interstate highway commercial sign district.

First reading bills included a bill to amend the City Code to include provisions for enforcement of an ordinance pertaining to the maintenance and removal of tree limbs. Councilman Bob Vanaman spoke against the bill, while Councilwoman Shelia Wright referred to a tree on her property that uprooted and fell onto a neighbor's vehicle. Wright said she is in favor of the bill because the existing ordinance is not enforceable by the city.

Other first reading bills were two to make provisions for new city job titles, a bill amending the city's merit system rules and calling an election on Aug. 8 to decide whether to continue a one-eighth of 1 percent transportation sales tax for high priority street and transportation projects, and providing for a sunset on the tax at the end of four years.

A resolution requesting that the Public Building Corp. of the city of Springfield consider the financing of certain projects within Jordan Valley Park was unanimously approved.

Springfield Care Center LLP, the owner of James River Care Center, was given the go-ahead to begin construction of a nursing and retirement home complex north of Sunset west of Fort. Council voted 7-1-1 in favor of an amended bill rezoning the land for the care center from a single-family residential district to a planned development district. Councilwoman Teri Hacker voted against and Councilman Ralph Manley abstained.

A second-reading bill approved unanimously annexes into the city 22.26 acres of private property in the 3500 block of West Sunshine, 22.15 acres of right-of-way on West Sunshine and the future extension of West Bypass and Route 13.

On the consent agenda was a bill approving the preliminary plat of Charity Baptist Church, located on the northeast corner of Kansas Expressway and Sunset.

A bill authorizing additional grant funds for the Springfield-Branson Regional Airport's surface transportation facility was approved, as was a bill to change the annual closure of Commercial Street for Frisco Days from the third Saturday and Sunday in April to any weekend approved by the city traffic engineer.

The preliminary plat of Sterling Electric, west of North Barnes and north of East Division, as an addition to the city, was also approved.