The purpose of this project was to identify the community’s vision for the Asbury Church going forward and to assist the Town of Middleburg with developing a reuse plan for the building that met the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation while also filling a void within the community.
Commonwealth
The Asbury Church
Building Documentation and Scanning
Community Engagement
Preparation of Preservation Plans
Preservation Planning
The Asbury Church Community Engagement Report and Reuse Recommendations
Partners
The Town of Middleburg
Friends of Asbury
Project Goals
This project combined technical expertise of building rehabilitation with public engagement to identify reuse options for the Asbury Church, a vacant historic African American church in Middleburg, Virginia.
Project Design
In order to determine the best future use for the building, CPG staff first visited the site to document the building and meet with internal stakeholders to determine what reuse options were both technically feasible and met the goals of the various stakeholder groups.
Additional feedback was provided through a public input survey that was available both online and in hard copy. The data gathered from these outreach efforts was analyzed and presented to the larger community at a public meeting in order to maintain transparency in the process.
Challenges & Accomplishments
The available reuse options were limited by a number of on-site factors, including a lack of parking and ADA accessibility as well as limited interior space. The identification of appropriate reuse options had to be considered from a number of perspectives, including the impact to the historic building and the surrounding neighborhood as well as on operations and logistics by the Town of Middleburg as the building owner
Through public engagement, several reuse options were identified that would serve the needs of the larger community while not being disruptive to the residential neighborhood where the church is located.