Exciting News For Post 109!
After a few months of process and with the approval of our membership, Commander Jamie Lethiecq and Finance Officer Jeffery Zinn signed a purchase agreement for our new property at 323-325 Allen Street catty corner from our Post property at 224 West Main Street.
We plan to clean up the property and convert the front portion closest to the Post for additional overflow parking. Volunteers are very much appreciated as we get everything ready for our members, our Legion Family. Please speak with a board member, staff member, or email CommanderMechanicsburgPost109@gmail.com, if you have time, expertise, or resources to share to improve your American Legion post.
Longer term, we have many thoughts and hopes for what we can do with the property. We hope that you do, too, as the purchase of this 1.5 acre property has secured us many options for our future as Mechanicsburg’s American Legion post.
We are excited to announce the 1st floor renovations are complete!
The scope of work included a non-smoking 1st floor area with a renovated Bentzel Hall, larger and modernized bar, ADA compliant restrooms, family restroom, along with associated plumbing, mechanical and electrical upgrades.
(Click on the image to view conceptual design renderings)
***The 1st Floor is currently open Thursday thru Saturday***
Look, there's more!
From the Commander!
Important information as for the new property is concerned in general, we officially purchased it in early July. There are 3 phases.
**The first phase is focused on preparing the front (eastern) portion of the property between the main building and York Street (114) to be expansion parking for our current facility. This will support the added parking that is needed now as well as parking that will be further necessitated by our new family-friendly, nonsmoking food service (supported by our recently-installed dumbwaiter from the kitchen) and bar space on the first floor.
**The second phase will focus on the eastern portion of the property (between the main building and the Advanced Coating Technologies) and concentrate on developing it as an outdoor pavilion and patio space.
**The third phase will then focus on the building itself. While I hope that it will be a refurbishment of the current historic (not legally established though the facilities date back to the 1840s and were heavily involved in the industry that made Mechanicsburg Mechanicsburg - wagon wheels and carriage spokes) structure, it will be nice to have space to accommodate our more than 2,100 members. There is, however, no timeframe associated with when phase 3 will happen.
Organizationally, the purchase of a 1.5 acre property catty-corner to our current facility has given us a lot of options for our future, and should the grant we applied for come through (as we hope), our timelines will certainly be expedited.
Additionally, there are four mini-phases to the process of the new property.
The first is setting up a flag presentation with a (hopefully WWI-era) deactivated weapon piece surrounded by a Flanders Field-style poppy field on the raised-concrete loading-dock area in the west side of the new parking area.
The second will be fixing up and renting out the westernmost building adjacent to the Advanced Coating Technology Facility.
The third will be allowing the local fire company to use the large bay space to store their fire trucks while they renovate and expand the Citizens Fire Company space as they move the Washington Fire Company in there (the two Fire Companies supporting the Mechanicsburg Borough merged and are consolidating to one location).
The fourth will be initially gifting the small building between the main building and Allen Street to the Fire Company to conduct destructive training such as roof breaches and turning windows to doors before having it torn down to make additional space.
Longer-term, I hope that our current facility will get converted to a local Mechanicsburg veterans home still supported by our Legion Post. That said, while I may have a vision, I realize that many of these projects will fall to the Commanders who follow me.
Thank you, Commander Jamie Lethiecq