SUNBURY – You can call the old jail the Stone Castle Sunbury. Monday night at the Sunbury city council meeting the new name for the former Northumberland County Prison was revealed. New owner Mark Walberg, announced he has filed an LLC with the state under the name “Stone Castle Sunbury.”
Walberg, who owns several buildings in Sunbury’s historic district, says he’s not exactly sure what he wants to do with the structure yet, but he does want to restore it, “I don’t have an exact, permanent plan, but first I have to get in and evaluate the damage and the restorations and based on that, the plan will evolve. I want to get in first and see, once I gut out all the old stuff, see how the spaces are, because there’s lots of temporary walls that have been added, so I want to get the true lay out of the floor plan, and then evaluate what the best use will be.”
When asked why he is working so hard to restore a fire damaged building he said, “I like the building a lot. It’s historically important. I’ve made stone walls. The stone work there can’t be duplicated today, you couldn’t afford it. Old school work it’s….you can’t find guys to even do it.”
Walberg went on to explain why buying and restoring historic buildings in Sunbury is important, “Because that’s what we have here, if you have 90% historical buildings. If you want modern buildings, you go buy somebody’s farm and you put in new strip centers and everything else, like we have over where the mall is. The quaintness of the town is what makes it. The square was designed in 1772, the courthouse, I mean it’s a typical historical old town. So you can’t change that, if you want modern you go to a big city and you go for modern.”
Walberg purchased the burned out former prison for the sum of $40,000 earlier this month. He said they hope to close on the property within the next 30 days and begin work shortly after that. (Christopher Elio)
