WEXFORD COUNTY — Jails are often seen as being a bad place, full of bad people, who did a bad thing.
But not for long.
The Wexford County Jail was recently sold and bought by Troy Baxter of Cornerstone Tabernacle Ministries, who has some very big plans for it.
Troy Baxter says ”Our first interest was, for the MOST program, which is a mentoring of skilled trades ministry that we do, through the church and, so, so that looked at, showed promise there, but also at former sheriff’s department was, its five acre site. So, that also showed promise for, relocating the church into that area and has a lot of the amenities we would need for both focuses. ”
Despite the big plans, like anyone who has bought property knows, it is not as cut and dry as one might think.
Troy still has a lot of hoops to jump through.
“The zoning for this location has been changed to accommodate, the plans that we have for, the developer just to purchase this site. We’re, we’re looking at, things moving forward to summer.” Troy tells us, “We do have to have a, approval for a special use permit. For that site, for the church. And, that, should be done sometime this summer. Waiting on an engineer, to to do that. Put to, present to the city. But we do have support for that direction and for the church to be relocated at that location. ”
Despite all the hoops, Troy is excited for what this property could mean for the future, saying “So that would be, you know, some renovation to accommodate, an assembly, use as opposed to offices and things of that nature so that that will be our, our target. We’ll have, somewhere around, 100 seat sanctuary, a little, potentially as we grow, we’ll, we’ll add more parking and things of that nature. ”
