Greensburg Lutheran church sells shopping plaza along Main Street

A Greensburg shopping plaza has been sold to a Unity church.

Charter Oak Church on Frye Farm Road has purchased the Mid Town Plaza at 415 S. Main St., from the First Evangelical Lutheran Church at 246 S. Main St., for $1.15 million, through its COC Holdings LLC, according to documents filed in October with the Westmoreland County Recorder of Deeds.

The church, in turn, provided COC Holdings with a $1.2 million mortgage for the property.

Skip Bennett, executive director of expansion and Nathan Anderson, president of Charter Oak Church council, could not be reached for comment Monday.

The First Evangelical Lutheran Church council had decided that ownership of the shopping plaza was not fitting into what the church needed, Chris Combs, pastor of the church, said. The church had a long-term lease with a third party operating the plaza where the Dollar General store is located and previously held the Lighting Gallery, but that lease expired in 2018, Combs said.

The site had been the church cemetery in the 1800s until Greensburg officials voted to eliminate cemeteries in the city, other that the historic one at St. Clair Park, said Combs. Those buried at the German cemetery had to be exhumed and relocated elsewhere, Combs said.

The church council has yet to decide how it will use the proceeds from the sale, said Combs, whose church has an active membership of about 200.

“We have a long history of generosity here. I think that will play (a factor) into it,” Combs said, of the decision how to use the money.

Charter Oak Church also has its Christian Counseling Association office at the Crossroads plaza at 1075 S. Main St. a church at 100 S. Second St., Jeannette; and services at the Laurel Valley YMCA in East Huntingdon.