Community Action plans to buy Legion in Albion

Main Street Store will leave downtown for Legion site

Photo by Tom Rivers – The American Legion has been trying to sell its building at 131 South Main St.

ALBION – A downtown store will be moving south on Main Street to the American Legion building.

Community Action of Orleans & Genesee’s offer has been accepted and agency director Ed Fancher expects to formally close on the property in March.

Community Action will move the Main Street Store, a thrift shop that provides job training skills, to the bigger location. It could open in the Legion building in May or June, depending on the pace of the closing on the property.

The Main Street Store uses two storefronts in downtown Albion in a building owned by Nathan Lyman at 49 North Main St.

The move to the Legion site will give the store more room for merchandise and for employees, Fancher said.

“Right now we’re cramped,” he said. “Part of the impetus is there isn’t enough floor space.”

The agency will do some minor renovations to the Legion building to turn it into a store. Fancher said the site will be comparable to a Salvation Army store or a Volunteers of America.

“We train people for employment,” he said.

As a term for the sale, the Legion will be able to stay another 18 months to use the bar in the back of the building.

For more on the Main Street Store, click here.