Friday, March 05, 1999
Museum eyes old post office
City considers selling building
BY RICHELLE THOMPSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
LEBANON — The Warren County Historical Society won't have to say “return to sender” to some donors if a deal with the city can be worked out.
Lebanon City Council this month may approve an agreement to sell the old post office on Broadway to the historical society.
The museum has had to turn away some donations of large objects, Historical Society President Dixon Maple said. There's just no room in the 28,000-square-foot building next door to the post office at 105 S. Broadway. It's already packed with Shaker furniture, quilts, paintings and other relics of Warren County's history.
The old post office is “the only place we can expand the museum into,” Mr. Maple said. “We're totally landlocked without it.”
The historical society has worked out a tentative deal with the city to buy the old post office for $220,000, the same amount the city paid last year. The society would use the building to house temporary exhibits and expand some of the permanent ones, and for storage, Mr. Maple said.
Council approved legislation last week for negotiations to move forward, and Acting City Manager C. Ed Patterson said he expects a measure outlining the purchase agreement to go before council Tuesday. The final vote could come by the end of the month.
Mr. Maple has eyed the post office as a potential site for expansion for four years. When the federal government opened a new facility in 1997 on New Street northeast of downtown and closed the 1930s-era building on Broadway, Mr. Maple started lobbying.
But the city bought the Broadway post office in November with plans to use part of the 10,000-square-foot building for office space while renting the
rest to the historical society.
Now, the city is looking at other alternatives for expansion, Mr. Patterson said.
“I don't believe the city would function as well if we had two or three places people needed to go,” Mr. Patterson said.
Instead of moving out some of the service departments, as originally planned, one option is consolidating the police department and the municipal court, he said.
The historical society, a nonprofit organization with an annual budget of $120,000, likely would borrow the money to buy the old post office building, then begin a fund-raising campaign to pay for both the purchase price and renovations, estimated at an additional $220,000.
The old post office, which was built in 1936, needs extensive work, Mr. Maple said, including new heating and air conditioning systems and plumbing.
One possible target for opening the new addition: Lebanon's bicentennial celebration in 2002.
An expansion into the old post office would accent the existing museum that is a converted gymnasium donated to the community in 1913 by millionaire William Harmon. The museum opened in 1961.
“The museum's job is to preserve and protect the heritage of the county,” said Mr. Maple, who has been president since 1990 but has been a part of the historical society since its inception in 1940. His father, Charters Maple, was the first president.
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