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A $1 million grant will hopefully help breathe new life into the long-empty Stillwater Worsted Mills plant in Goshen, turning the building into a museum and restoration shop for various historic vehicles and machines, as well as a manufacturing plant for log cabin tiny homes.
“We can take this derelict building that has sat vacant for the last 20 years and turn it into a constructive site with public access as well as employment opportunities,” Lee Harris, who applied for the grant, told The News-Gazette last week.
The factory operated for nearly 75 years and was the largest employer in the town before it closed in April of 2003.
“I think it’s been a real blow to the morale of the town to have this factory that used to employ so many people sitting there, vacant, for decades at this point,” Harris said. “So if we can repurpose that building and actually employ people from the area again, I think we can make a positive impact.”
The grant was awarded through the Industrial Revitalization Fund, or IRF, which is targeted toward vacant nonresidential struc- tures whose poor condition creates physical and economic blight to the surrounding area in which the structure is located. The Stillwater project is one of three receiving funding in the current round of funding awards which were announced in a press release from Governor Glenn Youngkin last Monday. The IRF grants are made available through the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development.
The main use for the money will be to perform repairs to the building, mainly consisting of putting on a new roof. After that, Harris said, the plan is to work on preparing part of the building to house a museum for the Virginia Mechanical Preservation Society, as well as a repair shop to restore machines and vehicles for display. The shop will be utilized to work on railroad cars and engines, as well as “individual locomotive components,” as well as smaller vehicles, including antique vehicles, military vehicles and “anything from covered wagons to steam engines, basically,” Harris explained.
“Once we get in the building and we can actually start utilizing it, we plan on pumping out as many static displays as possible, as well as doing some full restorations,” he said. “We already have plans to try to do a steam locomotive.”
Vehicles used for displays won’t just be inside, but also around the outside of the building and around the town of Goshen. Harris told The News-Gazette that the goal is “just to kind of make it so that the public has the ability to see these things, and if they’d like to come and see more of it in the museum, they can come and do that too.”
The second plan for the building is to use part of it for manufacturing, allowing North Fork Lumber, which Harris co-owns, to begin manufacturing log cabin tiny homes. Getting the museum and repair shop up and running is the main priority for now, though.
Once the funds are officially released to Harris and the VMPS, they will have 18 months to complete the repairs on the building, and they will then begin work on the museum and repair shop.
Goshen officials are excited for the opportunities the restoration of the plant and the proposed museum will bring to the town.
“I’m 200 percent for it,” Goshen Mayor Tom McCraw said. “It’s going to be a great thing for the town and for the area.”
“It’s a fantastic thing,” Vice-Mayor Steve Bickley added. “This can get eyes on Goshen that maybe have never been here before.”
The economic benefits would not just be for the town, but for Rockbridge County as well. “We are ecstatic about the IRF grant and its potential to reshape Rockbridge County’s economic landscape,” Brandy Flint, director of economic development for Rockbridge County, said in a press release from the county. “This funding will enable the Virginia Mechanical Preservation Society (VMPS) to breathe new life into a historic structure that has long been a symbol of both challenge and opportunity. We look forward to seeing the positive impacts of this revitalization on our local economy and community.”
The grant was formally awarded to Rockbridge County, and the application was submitted with assistance from the Central Shenandoah Planning District Commission.
