EDITORIAL The purchase of the historical 132-year-old property could be beneficial for the township and community.
Pioneer Grange No. 1 on Ridge Road could be up for sale.
And if all goes well, the township could be the buyer.
Mayor Frank Gambatese announced at Sunday’s Township Council reorganization meeting that the township is considering buying the historic building and turning it into a sorely needed recreation/community center that would serve the eastern side of the township.
Grange officers are open to the sale they say they can no longer afford the maintenance, but would prefer that the 132-year-old building remain in public use and that it be preserved.
Discussions between the Grange and the township are in what can best be described as the preliminary stages. Neither side is prepared to discuss a price. The property and building has been assessed at $380,000 for tax purposes.
On the surface, the sale makes sense for both sides. The community center at Woodlot Park is too small for a township that is approaching 40,000 residents and there is a need for a recreational building east of Route 1 where most of the population growth has come in recent years.
In addition, the Grange is a tangible piece of township history at the center of Dayton, a village that has made preserving its history a priority in recent years.
In the early 1990s, the township preserved the estate of John Wetherill, a Revolutionary War era landowner. Four years ago, the township and the Dayton Village Coalition worked together to save the Civil War-era Slack-Carroll House from demolition.
More recently, a new owner has taken over the 300-year-old hotel building at the corner of Ridge and Georges roads, a building that had housed Fat Eddie’s Groaning Board, the Chi-Am Chinese restaurant and the Dayton Diner over the last few decades. The building, which opened recently as The Whitlock Tavern, has been renovated and restored and now has the Victorian look it is said to have had more than a century ago.
Dayton also is home to the 134-year-old First Presbyterian Church at Dayton, its cemetery and the 75-year-old Dayton School, giving the village a sense of place and history that are lacking in most suburban communities.
The Grange also would benefit from a township takeover. It would relieve itself of the maintenance on the aging building it paid for a new roof this summer and could be facing other big-ticket costs down the road that a small organization like the Grange could not afford.
And while the sale would leave the organization without a building, the Grange would not be homeless. Mayor Gambatese said the organization, which is an important part of the township’s farming history, would have full access to the building and could use it for meetings and events.
The sales price, or course, will be the determining factor, but it appears that both sides are approaching discussions with the public good in mind.
We would encourage the township to continue talking and we would recommend that it conduct a full architectural review of the building to make sure there are no surprises coming down the pike.
Assuming a price can be agreed to and the building checks out, the township should proceed with the purchase.