Putnam Avenue Church Set For Demolition

ZANESVILLE, Ohio – The First United Methodist Church located at 857 Putnam Avenue will be razed in the coming days to make way for a new facility that will better suit the needs of the community in the 21st Century. 

The 100-year-old structure is crumbling and repair costs total well into the millions of dollars. So the church has reached out to the Muskingum County Land Bank for their help in reutilizing the property.

“About a-year-and-a-half-ago the Muskingum County Land Reutilization Corporation, Land Bank, received a $3.2 million grant for demolition within Muskingum County. We’ve utilized those funds on several different projects. So what we’re doing is, it’s a 75-25 grant. So the church is making up the 25 percent. We’re supplementing everything else with the grant funds and then the church will be able to retain ownership of the property and redevelop it,” Muskingum County Land Reutilization Corporation Executive Director Andy Roberts said.

The building was abandoned earlier in the year and its members and outreach programs have been adopted by the Grace United Methodist Church located at Fifth and Shinnick Streets. The congregation remains active in the neighborhood through their 901 Putnam Avenue outreach facility. 

“We are planning to build a new community center and the name of that will be Putnam Place Community Center. And there will be a chapel also involved in the building. So when I talk about the new building, the new community center, our plan is to move two vital ministries into that building. One is the one that existed at First Church, here in The Free Store. We have temporarily moved it across the street, on the corner of Putnam and Pierce. And it’s called Putnam Place Free Store,” Grace United Methodist Senior Pastor Karen Montgomery said.

The demolition is expected to be finished by the end of 2025 and the replacement structure will be constructed when sufficient funds are raised.