Rebuilding the gathering place: How Lingle put the Progress Program to work

When Lingle’s town council closed the old community building, the town was left with three choices, Mayor George Siglin said: leave it standing until it collapsed, tear it down and live with a vacant lot, or build something new.

The building was more than 100 years old and had once housed the American Legion and other businesses. “It was basically falling down upon itself,” Siglin said. The foundation was crumbling, and the building no longer met code. The council started discussing what to do around 2016 or 2017, he recalled, and decided it had to act.