After years of debate and delay, city of Yachats says repairs to Little Log Church Museum should begin in February

By GARRET JAROS/YachatsNews

YACHATS – If the weather cooperates, repairs on the Little Log Church Museum will begin in February.

After several years of community wrangling about whether to refurbish or raze the historic building completed by volunteers in 1930, along with feasibility studies and money set aside for its resurrection, the plan to move forward has been met without a peep of protest.

Word that the project was set to move forward came from interim city manager Rick Sant during his report to city council Oct. 15. The green light came after a meeting Sant and incoming city manager Bobbi Price had with Lincoln County administrator Tim Johnson.

“We’ve had just a roadblock with the county,” Sant said. “Tim Johnson has been super positive, told us that we are ready to go with the Little Log Museum. That’s scheduled for a February start once the rain stops. So that’s exciting.”

The county roadblock was in part a reference to Civil West Engineering Services, the firm hired by the city to scope out the museum, wanting to meet with the county planning department to discuss building code options but never getting a response.

The project should have been done years ago if the city had been able to get information from the county, “then finally Johnson was impressed with the engineer report and off we go,” Sant told YachatsNews.

At the council meeting Mayor Craig Berdie welcomed the tentative start date.

“I think we will all be excited to see some construction people at the Little Log Museum,” Berdie said. “That will be wonderful.”

Sant later shared some of the particulars with the YachatsNews.

“Civil West is our contractor for the outside of the building,” he said. “They also did the engineering study and provided a scope of work. There were surprisingly no significant problems with the foundation. It is projected to cost $225,000, but that’s for the outside.”

Civil West has both an engineering and construction wing. The company is based in Coos Bay but also has offices in Newport, Albany and Medford.

Work on the inside will be less involved and go much quicker, said Sant, who is awaiting completion of the outside before seeking bids for the inside work.

“I’m not expecting much with that in the way of cost or time,” Sant said. “The belltower is put up in a way that is too heavy for the roof. There should have been supports running down to the ground. So, we can have a belltower, just not that kind of belltower.”

Cost

The city set aside a museum capital reserve fund of $217,678 in July 2020 to fund repairs, said Tom Lauritzen, a member of Yachats’ finance and budget committees and has volunteered for years as a financial adviser for the city.

In general, 75 percent of the funds in the reserve are derived from visitor amenities and 25 percent from the city’s general fund, Lauritzen explained.

The overall cost of getting the museum ready to open will not be known until the final coat of interior paint, but costs already incurred along with Civil West’s estimate show the museum fund will fall short.

In fiscal year 2020, Waldport-based Lowrey Architectural Design was paid $9,600 for work at the site, and Civil West has been paid for four invoices – including an engineering study, that total $12,848. There were also two invoices, one in August 2021 for $6,267 and another in November 2021 for $12,000, paid to Eugene-based McClain Construction, which sealed the outside of the church against further moisture damage. But that money was not charged against the reserve fund, Lauritzen said.

The fund currently has $195,000 to put toward Civil West’s estimate and whatever the cost of inside repairs ends up being, Lauritzen said, but any additional needed monies will come from visitor amenities’ and general fund dollars.

How we got here

The church has been deteriorating for years because of neglect. Many of the logs in the walls are rotten and allowed water to penetrate inside and leave dry rot in its wake. Some windows are also failing but the roof is purported to be in decent shape.

The church and property were sold to the Oregon Historical Society in 1969 when the church’s congregation outgrew the building. It became a museum in 1970 and was deeded to the city in 1986. Little has been done with it since.

That changed in recent years when local engineer Larry Thornton and the museum’s board warned the city council that the structure was in danger of falling down.

The cost of the project is higher than normal residential or commercial jobs because under Oregon law the city must pay prevailing union wages, which typically doubles labor costs. Also, most smaller contractors are leery of taking on city jobs because of price controls and audits mandated by the government.

• Garret Jaros is YachatsNews’ full-time reporter and can be reached at GJaros@YachatsNews.com