Civic group donates building to Rices Landing VFD
The Rices Landing Volunteer Fire Department recently received a 100-year-old-building, which previously held the Rices Landing National Bank and the Bank of Sweets ice cream parlor.
The Rices Landing Volunteer Fire Department has recently received a 100-year-old building, which previously held the Rices Landing National Bank and the Bank of Sweets ice cream parlor.
Ryan Belski
RICES LANDING — The Rices Landing Volunteer Fire Department recently received a 100-year-old-building, which previously held the Rices Landing National Bank and the Bank of Sweets ice cream parlor.
The Civic Organization for Community Outgrowth (COCO) transferred the deed to the building, which the organization has owned since 1993, to the fire company on Wednesday at a hearing in Greene County Court.
COCO is in the process of dissolving, and, according to Ryan Belski, Rices Landing mayor and fire company president, the fire department offered to accept the building from COCO and to preserve it. The building has been vacant for at least the past two years.
“COCO has been around since at least the 1970s,” Belski said. “They were formed to run the town festival, the Riverfest, and they did all the community activities and a lot of maintenance work on the borough grounds in the town, like landscaping.”
Belski is not quite sure what the future holds for the building, but he does have a few ideas if money were available.
“The original plan for the building was for the fire company to take the building and either turn it into some sort of fireman’s club or utilize it during the Riverfest,” Belski said. “Currently, we do not have the funding to do any of those things.”
The Riverfest is a two-day festival in the second week of June for the community to gather and enjoy fireworks and live music while local organizations raise money. The turnout of the Riverfest is usually more than 3,000, according to Belski.
Belski said if the fire department ever acquires enough funding for those things, he could see them being able to use the building.
“All of the Fayette County fire departments utilize like a bar/restaurant that they kind of ride to make up their fundraising efforts. Since we discontinued bingo last year, that would be an option for us to replace that revenue,” Belski said. “But right now, it would be about $20,000 to $30,000 to bring it up to that point. We just don’t have [enough money].”
The building was not given to the fire company, because of lack of space or storage in the buildings they currently occupy, according to Belski.
If the fire company cannot use the building, it will try to find a proper suitor.
“The potential is either we’ll hold onto it for a little while and see if we get the money to do anything with it or we’ll try to sell it to investors who will hopefully not tear it down,” Belski said.
The fire company has not discussed any specific suitors at this point, but Belski has a few possible ideas of what he is looking for in a suitor.
“We’d like somebody to reopen it as a restaurant or like a recreational facility since the (Monongahela) river is right there for maybe a kayak rental place,” Belski said. “We would really not like it to be torn down. If that’s the last possibility, then that’s what will happen eventually. But not for a long time.”
According to Belski, the building is in great condition structurally, but it needs repairs inside.
The building, besides being a bank, was the old Lock 6 Museum, which has now moved to the borough building next door. After it was the Bank of Sweets ice cream parlor, it was a restaurant for a few years before eventually becoming vacant.