Fred Meyer will give away church

PALMER -- A church building in Palmer is up for grabs, but there's a catch -- anyone who wants it has to get if off Fred Meyer's property, and soon.

As Fred Meyer prepares to build a grocery store this summer on land next to the Palmer post office, company officials have said if no one claims the 7,200-square-foot building that now houses the First Baptist Church of Palmer, they will demolish it.

If a nonprofit group is interested in the building, Fred Meyer will give it away for free, according to company spokesman Rob Boley. In the event that a for-profit organization wants it, Fred Meyer is willing to negotiate a price.

"It's available," Boley said, adding that it will be on a first-come, first-served basis. The church will continue to use the building until June 14, and then anyone who wants the building would have to remove it during a 10-day window before Fred Meyer begins site work.

It was a good enough deal to attract the attention of the city of Palmer, until the Palmer City Council learned it could cost as much as $660,000 to get the building off its concrete slab, stabilize it, move it and put it back together at a new site.

"This was a good idea … It just cost too darned much money for what we're going to get," said Councilman John Combs. "It's not realistic, and that's too bad."

Combs and others on the council were interested in using the building for a youth recreational center or leasing it to a group such as the Boys and Girls Club. But according to Palmer Public Works Superintendent Rick Koch, the feasibility of moving the building is seriously hurt by the fact that it was built on a concrete slab.

"Something has to provide the foundation for the building," Koch told the council last week. "There are no floor joists, and it's a very heavy building. Its natural tendency will be for it to collapse."

Even if it were successfully moved, the building would require a significant amount of utility, electrical and other work in order to make it useable.

"The building would come in two pieces and would have to be stitched back together," Koch explained.

Council members seemed sorry to let the opportunity pass them by. According to some estimates, the building could be worth as much as a million dollars.

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, and while he was not pastor at the time, he said that it is his understanding that almost all the labor for the project was donated.

The church members did not consider taking the building with them because they were already outgrowing the facility -- membership has between doubled and tripled since it was built. Before Fred Meyer bought the property, the church had already begun looking at expanding or building a new facility.

Those plans are becoming reality. The First Baptist Church last weekend 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.

When asked how the church members will feel about their current facility being demolished in the event that no one claims it, Rowell said those that helped in its initial construction have the deepest emotional attachments to the building.

"If it were used by somebody, that would certainly please us," Rowell said. At the same time, he said, the building is not the most significant component of the First Baptist Church of Palmer.

"As far as theological beliefs … it is a house for the church itself to gather, the people being the church," Rowell said.