Grace Presbyterian Church hopes to relocate to the Dime Store Days building at 109 E. Sixth St. by August, although the church’s pastor said that may be an overly optimistic goal.

“We would love to be in it by our second anniversary, which is the last Sunday in August,” the Rev. Kyle McClellan said, “but that might be a pretty aggressive time frame. … There are all sorts of things we need to do to get it up to code and ready to use.”

Grace Presbyterian is purchasing the 1888 building, with the deal set to close on March 1.

“Right now we’re interviewing architects,” he said. “One of our criteria is firms that have either done work in the Old Market in Omaha or the Haymarket in Lincoln. We want to find somebody that has done the work of renovating historic buildings. We very much want to honor the architectural integrity of the building, but at the same time, obviously we’re going to use it for a different purpose.”

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