EAST LONGMEADOW – A decision by the Town Council could decide the fate of a beloved East Longmeadow landmark.

The East Longmeadow train depot is currently owned by Steve Graham, a businessman in East Longmeadow.

“At the time [I bought it], the owner of the land was planning on doing some development, or hoping to do some development I should say, and the depot needed to be moved if it [the development] was to go forward,” Graham told Reminder Publications. “I like old buildings like that and I thought that we might be able to find another home for it.”

That land is owned by Jay LeFebvre, another businessman who wants the depot off the land by May so he can build a mosque on it.

There are interested parties in East Longmeadow who are not willing to let go of the train depot or the history attached to it that easily. In addition to Graham, Historical Council Chairman Anthony Zampiceni has also been working to ensure the train depot’s future in East Longmeadow.

“We’ve looked around for sites [in East Longmeadow] and there isn’t a obvious site for it that we’ve been able to identify,” said Graham. “I know that any one of a number of people would like to see it stay in town.”

Such a decision may wind up in the hands of the Town Council as to whether or not the town should buy the land from LeFebvre so the train depot can stay where it is and not have to leave the location where it has sat for over a century.

This is because due to how much money LeFebvre wants for the land, it’s possible that the entire sale would need to be bonded for 20 years. According to Zampiceni, the land was appraised at $600,000 but LeFebvre is asking interested parties to pay up $1.3 million for the land upon which the train depot sits.

“Nothing [about the train depot] has changed since 1876,” Zampiceni told Reminder Publications.

For people in town who want to see the depot remain, Zampiceni has one last piece of advice.

“Contact your local council members,” said Zampiceni.

Graham had plans to turn the front of the depot into an ice cream shop, but had to put those plans on hold due to LeFebvre’s plans for the mosque.

“These buildings don’t do well unless they’re repurposed, and they don’t get visited unless they’re repurposed, and by repurposed I mean turn it into an ice cream shop or a coffee shop or a book shop or something that attracts the public and then they go into these old buildings and they say ‘wow, what a great old building’,” said Graham. “If you just put it on a site and expect people to go into it because it’s an old historical building, like the little red schoolhouse in town, people don’t go in it.”