BATH — Fundraising bricks to pay for improvements to a 19th century freight shed are available for order.

The City Council gave unanimous consent Jan. 2 to a proposal from the Bath Freight Shed Alliance to include the bricks in a sidewalk to be constructed this year along Commercial Street.

The bricks cost $150 each. An order form is available at bathfreightshed.blogspot.com, from bathfreightshed@gmail.com, or at the Bath Winter Farmers Market, which runs Saturdays through April at the shed from 9 a.m.-noon. Forms are also available at the real estate office of Sharon Drake, 136 Front St.

The group, which plans to donate the bricks to the city, is selling engraved space on the bricks to charter members as part of its membership drive. Each brick will have two engraved lines, with space for 20 characters and spaces on each line.

The shed improvements, which could cost between $18,000 and $23,000, include repairs to the building’s Commercial Street-side sill and its foundation wall. The work would run concurrently with excavation of the Commercial Street side of the shed for construction of the sidewalk.

Restoration of the shed’s exterior is planned as a later project.

The shed is also the construction site of the Virginia, a replica of a historic pinnace built at the Popham colony in 1607-1608.

The sidewalk work will be funded primarily through federal funds distributed by the Maine Department of Transportation, and should go out to bid in late spring and be constructed this summer, City Planner Andrew Deci said last month.

Alex Lear can be reached at 781-3661 ext. 113 or alear@theforecaster.net. Follow him on Twitter: @learics.

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