Price too high for club

PALMER -- How much does Palmer want its own Boys and Girls Club? Not enough to write a check for $400,000.

The Boys and Girls Club showed up at last week's Palmer City Council meeting with a $400,000 plan to turn a former church building into a new clubhouse on city property. Just a few blocks away, the building that previously housed the First Baptist Church of Palmer had already been dismantled and prepared to be moved out of the way of an upcoming Fred Meyer development near the Palmer Post Office.

"When opportunity knocks, we're not ones to turn it down," said Noelle Hardt with the Boys and Girls Club's Anchorage office. She said typically communities provide the facilities for the youth program, which serves 7- to 18-year-olds before and after school and during the summer with educational, fitness and other activities. The club then comes up with the funds to keep the programs going.

Hardt said the vacant church building and the city's property near Palmer Junior Middle School provided a chance for the town to get its own clubhouse. She urged the council to commit at least $200,000 this year to purchasing the building and moving it to the city lot, with plans to invest another $200,000 next year to get the club up and running.

Darrel and Marty Greenstreet, who purchased the church building from Fred Meyer, were also at the meeting to encourage the council in this direction.

"We need to think of really creative ways to make this happen," Marty Greenstreet told the council.

The Greenstreets said they had until the end of last week to get the building out of the way of Fred Meyer's crews and that they felt the Boys and Girls Club would put it to great use. The couple owns Wasilla's clubhouse and leases it to the nonprofit.

Marty Greenstreet said the Boys and Girls Club is a program they believe in and know would benefit the community.

But despite the enthusiastic testimony of the club representatives and the Greenstreets, the council turned the offer down.

"I'm not sure there is a consensus on this council that we want to commit that kind of money to a project like this at this time," Councilman Tony Pippel said.

Instead, the consensus seemed to be that the Palmer City Council would like the youth program to come to town but that the asking price was simply too high.

"I would love to have a Boys and Girls Club right here in Palmer … I just wish this would have worked out," Councilman John Combs said. "It's a darned shame and I hope we get another opportunity to do this." However, he said the proposal was simply cost prohibitive.

"For that kind of money you can build something brand new," Combs said.

Combs pointed out that the council had already considered the idea of taking the church building off Fred Meyer's lot for just this use, but decided the potential $600,000 or more that would be required to set up the building as a youth facility was too much.

"We gave it an honest effort," Councilman Brad Hanson agreed. "We see the value in it … We recognize the need and we're headed that way, and we're going to get there. But I'm not sure we're in the position to write a check tonight for $200,000 and next year write another for $200,000."

When it became clear the council wasn't going to sign on to the deal, the Greenstreets said they didn't see any way the building would end up as a Boys and Girls Clubhouse without the city's support.

"I'm disappointed," Marty Greenstreet said. Her husband agreed.

"We weren't trying to force this through," Darrel Greenstreet said after the meeting. "We've got another buyer."