Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 9, 1994                   TAG: 9403090102
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C3   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG                                LENGTH: Medium

STORM REPAIR OFFER HAS CHURCH FUMING

Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. has offered Court Street Baptist Church about $408,000 to repair the building's front wall, displaced steeple and other damages from a June storm.

"The church, to put it mildly, is upset," said Henry M. Sackett III, an attorney for Court Street Baptist, the city's oldest black church.

"The fact that the steeple is still on the ground nine months after the storm is bad enough," Sackett said. "And then we have Nationwide come and file a lawsuit against the church."

The company filed the civil action asking the U.S. District Court to set a settlement figure.

"This is a way for Nationwide to get the issue resolved as quickly as possible," said John T. Cook, an attorney for the insurance company. "We don't want this to drag on."

Sackett disagreed with that explanation.

"I certainly don't see going to court as the quickest way to resolve the issue," he said. "The quickest way is what we wanted to do - to sit down and talk about it."

Court Street Baptist plans to file a countersuit against Nationwide seeking money for legal costs and for the full repair of the church, a Virginia historic landmark, Sackett said.

Built in 1879, Court Street Baptist Church housed the first NAACP chapter in the South in 1913.

Bill Davis, an engineer hired by the church to estimate the cost of repairs, said Nationwide is looking for a quick fix that does not respect the history or the safety of the building.

"The simple matter is that the insurance company has not agreed that the historic front of the church should be repaired without using unsightly metal plates," said Davis.

"Their method is to repair the building on the outside. Our method is to do the work inside so it is not seen," Davis said.

But the church's claim for $878,750 includes damage like wear and tear that is not covered by its policy with Nationwide, Cook said.

"It's not a full-replacement policy," he said. "There is some significant wear and tear to that building. We feel that their estimate of the damages is in excess of fair compensation under the policy."

Memo: shorter version ran in the Metro edition.