Batavia picks building for permanent home for food pantry
The Batavia Interfaith Food Pantry and Clothes Closet may have found a permanent home.
Batavia aldermen on Tuesday will discuss buying a 14,000-square-foot industrial building at 330-338 E. Webster St.
It is listed for sale at $750,000 on ColdwellBankerHomes.com.
The sale would be subject to the building passing an environmental test required by the federal Housing and Urban Development Department. The city has received a $3 million grant to buy and renovate a permanent location for the food pantry. It also would be used to store toys for the annual nonprofit Batavia ACCESS Toy Drive, according to a city memo.
The food pantry and clothes closet, which started in 1981, were located for 31 years in a small building on Flinn Street next to the city’s sewage treatment plant. The city lets the pantry use the building rent-free.
City and pantry officials have been looking for a new home for the pantry since 2017. The pantry lost an outdoor area where it processed food donations, conducted immunization clinics and hosted job fairs when the city began expanding the sewage treatment plant project in 2018. At times, the clothes closet has stored off-season clothing at other sites.
In September, the food pantry and clothes closet moved into temporary quarters on Raddant Road as the city razed the Flinn Street building for sewage plant space.
Storage for the toy drive has bounced around town. Its most recent site was the former Sam’s Club store on Randall Road. In the late fall, about $5,000 worth of toys were damaged by unsupervised children of workers in a newspaper distribution business also renting space there, according to a Batavia police report.
The committee of the whole meeting is at 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Schielke Government Center, 100 N. Island Ave.