Allentown Liberty Bell Museum, church struggle on deal
The Allentown Liberty Bell Museum still has not reached a resolution on its future, but has an extra month to remain at Zion’s United Church and attempt to work out a deal with the building’s new owners.
Museum board president Dennis Blankowitsch said Thursday that the museum has until April 2 to reach an agreement with Resurrected Life Community Church, the new owner of the historic building.
“We are working on that ,” Blankowitsch said. “The extra time is good.”
The museum’s continued operations have been in question since the church’s ownership switched hands from Zion’s to Resurrected Life in early February.
The rift between Resurrected Life and the museum came to light in a Feb. 10 letter, in which senior pastor Gregory Edwards wrote that the church would not enter into a lease agreement with the museum.
The museum board voted down a 15-year lease agreement, proposed by the church, that would have subsidized the first three years of the museum’s rent before increasing to a market rate price of $3,412 per month by year five, and increasing by 3% annually after that. The museum had previously paid no rent under a 99-year lease with
Zion’s United congregation.
Lehigh County Executive Phil Armstrong, who has been involved in negotiations between the museum and church, said the ball is in the museum’s court when it comes to negotiations. He said the church has offered
the museum three potential options for its future, though he declined to say what those options were.
“We want to keep in the area, let’s put it that way,” Armstrong said. “We do have a plan C. And might not want A, B or C. They’re
the foundation, so it’s going to come down to them.”
According to Sara Brace, a former museum board member, Zion’s United Church had initially offered the historic building to the museum’s leadership, which declined. The church then
offered the building to Resurrected Life, which accepted.
Blankowitsch said the museum could not afford the hundreds of thousands in yearly costs it would take to maintain the building, which is why they turned down Zion’s offer. The historic building costs between $80,000 and $100,000 a year to maintain, he said.
According to the letter from Edwards, Resurrected Life could not continue to allow the Liberty Bell Museum to operate under the existing lease without sacrificing its own finances.
“We cannot provide the museum additional spaces at little or no cost without putting ourselves in the same fiscal situation that led to Zion’s closure and sale,” Edwards wrote. He has declined to comment when reached by The Morning Call.
Zion’s Reformed United Church, which is on the National Register of Historic Places, was built by German Lutheran and Reformed congregations after outgrowing the log church where they initially worshipped in 1762, the year Allentown was founded.
The building was the hiding place of the 11 bells that were kept from British troops after American revolutionaries officially declared independence from the crown. One of those bells was the State House Bell, known now as the Liberty Bell.
The Liberty Bell Museum, located in the church’s basement, pays tribute to that history.