The Outpost, a community resource center in Washougal, set to close Oct. 31

The Outpost, a former church building at the heart of “E” Street in Washougal, has slowly morphed into a community resource center since its launch in 2017, hosting various events and local organizations, offering event hall space and meeting rooms for rent, and housing kids activities and a teen leadership camp led by Lone Wolf Jiu Jitsu owner Don Stoner.

“We hope to turn this space into a true community center one day,” Washougal resident and longtime community volunteer Pam Clark, The Outpost’s unofficial leader, said on The Outpost’s website. “With help and support, we can make a difference here.”

The help and support Clark was seeking never arrived.

The Camas Church of the Nazarene (CCN) and the Tumwater, Washington-based Washington Pacific District Church of the Nazarene (WPDCN), the building’s owners, have put the building up for sale and will close The Outpost as of Thursday, Oct. 31, according to Clark.

News of the decision came as a devastating blow to Clark, who had toiled diligently during the past several years to develop The Outpost into a “safe space” for people of all ages to gather, collaborate, and help east Clark County thrive.

“It hurt me a lot,” Clark said. “I was running a bazaar, and I got this telephone call, and it’s like, ‘How do you sell stuff to people when you’re so hurt?’”

Washougal resident Sandra Renner, who has spearheaded the development of The Outpost’s childrens’ programs and Hispanic community offerings, said that she approached Camas Church of the Nazarene leaders in 2021, and asked them to let her know if they ever decided to put the building up for sale.

“I said to them, ‘I have some backers, some investors, that are willing to invest right now. They have plans (to renovate the building),’” she said.

The investors planned to “completely remodel” the whole building, upgrade the kitchen, put in showers, install a community outdoor pool, develop a parking lot and build eight “tiny homes” for homeless youth, Renner said.

“I told (the CCN leaders) all about it, showed them plans, and they said, ‘We’re just not ready for that. We’re not ready to do anything like that,’” Renner said. “I said, ‘Please, all I’m asking is give me the first opportunity when it comes up, because these investors might not be (interested anymore), but maybe I can find other ones, so that way we know at least it stays within the community.’”

When Clark called Renner to inform her about the upcoming sale, Renner said, “Nobody ever contacted me.”

“I was like, ‘How could they do that to us?’ They knew that we were interested in it. They should have at least said, ‘This is the opportunity that you’re looking for, we’re deciding to go ahead and sell, we’re going to give you time to see if you can (confirm your) investors,’” Renner said.

“I told Pam, ‘I don’t think they plan on (working with us). If anything, maybe they already have somebody in mind.’”

When asked if she’s tried to re-engage with her potential investors after receiving news of the sale, Renner said that she hasn’t because she would need “a price.”

“I’ve been asking and asking and asking (the church leaders), ‘Do you even have a general idea, so I can approach (my people)?’ And they haven’t told us,” she said. “I’m embarrassed after the last time. They paid out good money for the plans, and to just be rejected hands down, I don’t want to go and approach any investors now without (the information we need).”

Clark said that, at this point, the best she can hope for is that the new owner will indicate a willingness to share some of the building to keep The Outpost going, albeit in a smaller, modified form.

“Give us half of it, or even a quarter, “Renner said. “That’s all we want.”

Clark and Renner said that finding another location for The Outpost could be theoretically possible, but challenging.

“Where do we find (a new space)?” Clark said. “The Grange Hall is condemned. Someone said that the IOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) hall has been sold, but there’s never been anything done on it for years. If somebody would come to us and work with us, then, yeah, (we would like to keep it going).”

“We’re willing to just go into another spot,” Renner added, “but it needs to be a spot that has easy access. This was as easy as you could get.”

Clark said that all of the money raised by events and activities was put right back into The Outpost, and that she invested her own money into building upkeep that wasn’t performed by the CCN.

“I knew that (the CCN was) having issues with things, that they weren’t putting money back into (the building), and everything that was being done was what Marty (Watson) and I would work at.” Clark said. “We could have generated way more money for them if they had fixed the things that we needed them to fix, like the heat and the cooling. We could have rented it a lot more and made them more money.”

After the Washougal Church of the Nazarene closed in 2017, then-CCN pastor Joe Crosby talked with his superiors about the future of the Washougal building, wondering if they should sell it or try to start a new church.

Crosby considered opening “a compassionate ministry-outreach center,” but when that plan failed to come to fruition, the building remained vacant.

At that point, Clark and fellow Washougal residents Amy Smith and Michele Gregson saw an opportunity. The three women had identified a need for a local space for organizations to come together to help the community, and when the Washougal church closed, “we all were very clear in what the future could hold with that building, and we just started running with it,” Smith told The Post-Record in 2022.

“It took a long time for people to figure out what an ‘outpost’ is,” Clark said. “It’s like the best-kept secret that nobody knows about. But the more vocal, the more outgoing I become, people are going, ‘Tell me about The Outpost.’ The ball was starting to roll. Now, they’re all disappointed. They’re like, ‘What are we going to do? Where are we going to go?’”