Church building to be moved, not demolished

EOWYN LeMAY IVEY-Frontiersman reporter

PALMER -- A church in Palmer won't be demolished to make room for a Fred Meyer grocery store. Instead, it will be moved and reincarnated in another form.

Where and what that will be, however, remains to be seen. A church of another denomination? An office building? A school or youth center?

"You could do pretty much anything with it," said Darrel Greenstreet, owner of Palmer-based Greenstreet General Contracting. Greenstreet has purchased the 70-foot-by-140-foot First Baptist Church of Palmer from Fred Meyer for an undisclosed amount of money and is now in the process of trying to find a buyer. Greenstreet said he has been working on a number of possible deals, including with another church and a labor union.

Personally, he said, he would have liked to see the church converted to a Palmer Boys and Girls Club. Greenstreet owns the Wasilla-area building currently leased to the nonprofit youth group.

"But they just don't have any money," Greenstreet said of funding a Palmer location. "I'd like to do it for free, but I can't do it for free."

If he can't find a buyer between now and when he moves the building, Greenstreet said he will either temporarily store it on some different property or purchase a lot and permanently install the building with plans to sell or lease it.

When asked how much the church building itself is worth, Greenstreet said, "I'd rather not say … it's worth a couple of dollars." Installed on a lot, Greenstreet said, "the building's worth a bunch."

The church was built six years ago and so meets all current codes, Greenstreet said. And because it has few weight-bearing walls, it could be easily modified to fit a variety of uses.

Finding a buyer is not Greenstreet's most immediate challenge, however. First, he has to get the building off Fred Meyer's property next to the Palmer post office. Fred Meyer has agreed to let the First Baptist Church continue to use the building until June 15. Then, Greenstreet will have 14 days before Fred Meyer wants to begin site work.

This limited window and the fact that the building will be relatively difficult to move are the primary factors that deterred other potential takers. Fred Meyer offered to give away the church building to a nonprofit, and for a while the city of Palmer was interested in it. But city public works officials estimated it could cost as much as $600,000 to remove it within two weeks and set it up at another site. Too much money and too little time to get it done, the city concluded.

But that is what Greenstreet General Contracting does and has done for more than 20 years -- move big buildings. Greenstreet said he has moved a number of structures of a similar size and scope, including a two-story, 80-foot-by-120-foot Wasilla building.

Greenstreet admits the Palmer church will present some obstacles. It was built on a concrete slab, so he will have to begin by building a framework beneath the church to stabilize it during the move. It will also have to be divided into two sections before being loaded on to hydraulic dollies. He will then use six-wheel rock-hauling trucks to pull the loads. Because of the height of the building, signal lights and power lines will have to be taken down along the route Greenstreet takes the building.

Such a move requires permits from the state, which Greenstreet is acquiring. And, he said, the project has attracted the attention of the staff of the permitting office in Anchorage.

"They want to come out and watch this one," he said.

Greenstreet estimates it will take a crew of five or six workers the entire two weeks, working long hours each day, to get the church moved. Even still, he said he is confident he will get it done in time and that the structure will be in good shape wherever it arrives.

"It's such a good building," he said.

The building has at least $250,000 worth of materials alone into it, estimates Bruce Rowell, pastor with the First Baptist Church of Palmer. The building was constructed in 1996, primarily by volunteer labor.

Church members did not consider taking the building with them when they sold the property to Fred Meyer because they were already outgrowing the facility -- membership has between doubled and tripled since it was built. The First Baptist Church recently broke ground on a building that will eventually be twice the size of its current facility. The new church will be located across the Glenn Highway from the Alaska State Fairgrounds. Until it is ready, perhaps sometime next winter or spring, the church is meeting at Palmer High School each Sunday.