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Costs cause Masonic Temple to close
Declining membership, increasing costs present challenges for owners
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
After 106 years of serving the local freemasonry groups, the Masonic Temple in Youngstown will close.
The closure isn’t sudden news for the freemasonry groups that meet there.
“Like all of the service clubs and fraternal organizations, we are suffering from declining members,” said Tim Johnson, secretary of the board of directors for the temple and manager of the building at 223 Wick Ave.
The temple, which opened in 1910, will close June 30.
“It was still in very heavy use until the late 1980s and early 1990s,” Johnson said of the temple.
The temple is under the umbrella of the Grand Lodge of Ohio for free and accepted masons.
Founded in England in 1717, freemasonry is the oldest and largest fraternal organization in the world, according to the Grand Lodge of Ohio.
Freemasonry “unites men of good character who, though of different religious, ethnic, or social backgrounds, share a belief in the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of mankind,” according to the Grand Lodge of Ohio’s website.
In Ohio, the number of members in the Masonic Fraternity has dropped from a high of 285,000 members recorded in 1959 down to about 87,000 members today, Michael Watson, the Grand Lodge of Ohio’s secretary, said in a statement.
“Almost all of the meeting facilities are older, having been built 70-80 years ago,” Watson said. “A declining membership as a source of revenue coupled with the ever-increasing costs of maintaining aging buildings presents a real challenge in keeping ownership.”
The temple in Youngstown, which has been on the National Register of Historic Places since June 1997, is a place for local masonic groups to meet.
The local groups have seen a drop in membership and that has meant less funds to go toward running the temple.
“This building is very expensive to maintain,” Johnson said.
The board of directors has looked into closing the building for about a year and a half.
“It is not a sudden move,” Johnson said. “It has been done methodically.”
The temple has interested parties looking at the building.
“We don’t want to leave a vacant building in Youngstown,” Johnson said.
The temple will have an auction at the end of May.