Restoring the church could cost $8 million, according
to one study
NEWBURGH – The 1835 Dutch Reform Church on Grand Street in Newburgh
will be studied again after continuing to sit in a state of disrepair
for years.
The city owns the stately but dilapidated building, designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis in the Greek Revival style.
The city council has approved an agreement to spend $18,500 of Community Development Block Grant funds to perform a structural engineering assessment of what it would take to restore the building, which was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.
Mayor Judy Kennedy said a consultant engineering firm will take a new look at the building.
“This is an opportunity for us to work with the State Preservation
League to get the money to perform this engineering study to see what
we can do to save the Dutch Reform Church,” Kennedy said. “It
has been put on the Seven to Save list at the state level as a pathway
to see if there is a way to bring this church back from the brink of disaster.”
An earlier study said it would cost $8 million to restore the edifice which has suffered much interior and exterior damage.
The church congregation deconsecrated the building in 1967 and moved to a new church in the Town of Newburgh.
One of the last proposed future uses for the Dutch Reform Church, if it is ever brought back to life, was as a community center for the greater Newburgh area.
