Chamber to keep current building, says town manager

Although some discussions had been held on the fate of the former town office building, which now houses the Alleghany Chamber of Commerce, the building will continue to be the chamber’s home for the immediate future, Town Manager Bryan Edwards told members of the Sparta Town Council on March 1.

Edwards said the chamber’s former director, Leanne Murray, had put a renovation project funded by a North Carolina Department of Transportation grant on hold after she decided to leave her post last year to further her education. That grant, which totaled about $28,775, was slated to help with much-needed renovations to the interior of the aging building.

Meanwhile, the new director, Bob Bamberg, did not want to move forward with work until the building discussions were resolved. According to Edwards, the chamber board had been discussing the matter and finally came to the conclusion that the chamber would be best served to remain in its present location.

“Their decision was to ask the town to continue to allow them to continue to use that building,” Edwards said. The chamber is basically rent-free in the location.

In an interview Tuesday, Bamberg said the chamber had looked at the possibility of moving earlier. “We had looked at other locations, but we could not find anything that was more suitable than our current building without incurring far more debt than we were comfortable with at the present,” Bamberg said. “We wanted to stay on Main Street.”

The current building has several aesthetic problems, including needing carpeting, ceiling work and other renovations. “We have the grant money and we are going to fix those problems,” he said.

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