This week, members of the .918 Club began packing up.

The club is being evicted from its space on the third floor of the Heritage Center Museum on Lancaster's Penn Square.

The 1920s era printing shop, a fixture at the museum for eight years, faces the prospect of homelessness.

"Right now, we're stuck. We need a place to go," club member Ken Kulakowsky said.

The Heritage Center Museum closed with the new year, when ownership of the building reverted to the city. Yearlong renovations are expected to begin this spring.

City officials have not announced future plans for the building, but Kulakowsky said he has been told it does not include reopening the printing shop.

He and other club members would like to see the program continue to teach people the history of printing. And they would like to have it continue in downtown Lancaster.

So far, they have had no luck in finding a new location. Kulakowsky, of Willow Street, said he and other club members have looked at a half-dozen locations. Most want rent money which the nonprofit club does not have.

"The problem is paying for it," he said of rent charges that would amount to about $1,000 per month.

The club also is considering storing its printing presses, cabinets of letters and other equipment. Yet even storage costs money, Kulakowsky said.

The only options which would not cost anything are offers to relocate to other cities. Separate printing businesses in Harrisburg and Reading have contacted the club about setting up there.

Kulakowsky said the club would prefer to stay in Lancaster County, where most of the 34 members reside.

They also would prefer to be close to Lancaster's printing history.

A historical marker across the street from the Heritage Center notes it was the site of the print shop that printed Thomas Paine's pamphlets, which helped spark the Revolutionary War.

Intelligencer Printing is the oldest continually operating printer in the nation, Kulakowsky said. Major national printing companies, such as R.R. Donnelley & Sons, continue to have a presence here.

"Lancaster is a hotbed for printing and every one of those printing companies that are here started as a letterpress printer," said Kulakowsky, who spent 35 years teaching printing and graphic arts in the Octorara School District.

Letterpress printing, in which individual letters are assembled and inked and paper is then pressed against them, was the standard means of printing from the 1450s until the 1950s.

It has been preserved in the print shop, where club members have taught the printing method to museum visitors and groups of Boy Scouts and school students.

Kulakowsky said attendance at the museum varied widely, with as few as 15 visitors some days and as many as 200 when word got out the museum would be closing.

The club has been told to move from the museum space by the end of March. The club also must vactate the Jasper Yeates House, where club members taught larger groups, by May.

The Yeates House, in the first block of South Queen Street, is where the club hoped to move. Kulakowsky said the building owners, Lancaster Newspapers Inc., publisher of the Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era said they now plan to rent the space.

"We were real disappointed. We thought that was an opportune location, and right up the street from the Newseum," said Kulakowsky, referring to Lancaster Newspapers' display behind glass along the street.

Randy Patterson, city director of Economic Development & Neighborhood Revitalization, said he had met with club representatives. Because the club is unable to pay rent and utilities, it has limited options, Patterson said. He directed them to contact the newspaper in hopes of securing donated space.

Harold E. Miller, Lancaster Newspapers president and chief executive officer, said he had not seen a request from the club and declined comment on the future use of the Yeates House.

Tom Ryan, president and chief operating officer of LancasterHistory.org, the organization of the former county historical society and Wheatland, said the .918 Club has not approached his organization seeking a site.

If it did, it likely would not have helped. LancasterHistory.org is focused on completing the expansion and renovation of its President Avenue campus and has all its present space committed, Ryan said.

Kulakowsky said the club has approached representatives of Landis Valley Museum and been told the state museum is not interested in adding the print shop at this time.

Marshall Snively, of the city James Street Improvement District, said he was aware the club was losing its location, but he has not been involved in helping it find a new home.

"We would hate to see it leave," he said of the print shop. "I would hope they would have someone to take them in."

Kulakowsky said he hopes media attention, through the printed word, might bring the club other options.

"We're hoping that with more exposure, somebody will help us out," he said.

bharris@lnpnews.com