Joni Blackman, interim executive director for the Fenton History Center, sits next to Council President Tony Dolce to present the Fenton’s 2025 budget to the council. P-J photo by Sara Holthouse

Looking forward to 2025, the Fenton History Center’s biggest problem for the upcoming year is the need for a new roof.

Joni Blackman, interim executive director, presented the Fenton’s budget to City Council members recently, thanking council members for the ability to use the building, saying it is wonderful except for the need of a new roof.

“The roof I’m told, first of all I don’t have a contractor so I don’t know where the numbers came from, I just started literally today full-time, but I’m told it’s a $1 million job,” Blackman said. “It is a historic building, and unfortunately we know too much. We know that there is a tin roof underneath, so we have to recreate that look. It doesn’t mean it has to be tin, it can be modern metal.”

Blackman said that the roof just needs to look like tin, and cannot be the rubber roof that is currently on the building. She discussed trying to track down some grants from the state for the project, including with the state Parks Department, saying she thought they were probably in a 25% match situation.

“The city bought the building in 1919,” Blackman said. “In the 1920s the rubber roof was put on. And then it was put on and put on and put on and put on.”

While Blackman said the building does not belong to her, but to the city, she said she will do everything she can to get the roof done. She said it is a project that has been limping along for a couple of years and is something that needs to get done, especially as the roof on the tower is disintegrating. There has been discussion of funding from Assemblyman Andrew Goodell’s office that Blackman said she just needed to get, but the money from that is not even going to touch the tower.

An additional problem with the roof is that it is not something that can be done piece by piece but something that needs to be done all at once. There was also discussion regarding talking with the city’s grant writer, and that the amount the Fenton can get from the state depends on the funding source.

“It is a fantastic building,” Blackman said. “It is on the list of historic buildings federally and statewide, so we’ll find it.”

A question was raised by the council if a price may be known by the end of the year. Blackman said she doubted it, as she did not even know how to track down someone within 100 miles to do the work. Councilman Jeff Russell, R-At Large, said he knew of someone in Pennsylvania that specializes in this specific work.

There was also a brief discussion regarding other equipment and the Fenton’s boiler system, which Blackman said they cannot afford to switch out, but the roof remains the biggest issue heading into next year.