Five former Catholic churches are being reused for worship by other religious groups, a couple of them have been turned into museums, and several are being converted into living spaces. Since its restructuring effort began in 2005, the Diocese of Buffalo has sold about a quarter of the 77 worship sites that have been closed or are slated to close.
The diocese so far has sold 18 churches.
Four other properties are under contract to be sold, and a couple more are nearing a deal, according to diocesan spokesman Kevin A. Keenan.
“Things are going very well. The bishop has been very pleased with the number of properties that have been sold,” Keenan said. “It has exceeded our expectations to this point.”
The sales are helping neighborhoods around the former churches and, in some cases, putting properties on the tax rolls, he added.
Thirty-five properties are currently on the market. In addition, six sites that are no longer being used for worship are not for sale, and a handful of others are being leased.
New uses still await sites where parish mergers haven’t been completed.
The diocese is hosting a symposium Tuesday in the former St. Barbara Parish center on Caldwell Street in Lackawanna to discuss further possibilities for closed churches, including those located in impoverished areas of Buffalo, Lackawanna and Niagara Falls.
Bishop Edward U. Kmiec is particularly interested in exploring how nonprofit agencies could redevelop facilities to meet human services needs in the community, said Keenan.
Representatives from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal will be on hand to explain possible federal and state funding for adaptive reuse projects.
There will also be discussion of state and federal historic tax credits.
Sales of churches so far have generated more than $2 million for remaining Catholic parishes.
Sale prices have ranged from a low of $12,000 for the former Sacred Heart Church in Angelica, Allegany County — an 1851 clapboard structure that was one of the oldest continuously used buildings in the Buffalo diocese — to $300,000 for the former Immaculate Conception Church on Edward Street in Allentown, purchased in 2006 by developer the Plaza Group.
Immaculate Conception and St. John the Baptist, which sold for $160,000 in 2006 to the Plaza Group, remain vacant and are back on the market.
The huge sell-off of properties had caused alarm that empty buildings would end up in disrepair and stripped of valuable interior architectural features. Community groups also worried that closed churches would contribute to neighborhood instability.
Others expressed concern about whether the diocese would do enough to determine if potential buyers could afford the buildings, some of which are costly to maintain and repair.
Some previously closed Catholic churches suffered badly from neglect, years after the diocese sold them off to other congregations or nonprofit groups without the wherewithal to care for the spaces.
But Keenan said the diocese has been careful about whom it sells to.
“It’s not a fire sale,” he said. “We have had some potential buyers who could not financially meet the needs, so we did not sell to them.”
Vacant churches are primarily the responsibility of any merged parishes that are part of the closings.
Those parishes receive the proceeds of any sale, but also end up having to pay any carrying costs, such as utilities and, in some cases, property taxes.
St. Katharine Drexel Parish in Lovejoy, for example, has received city property tax bills for St. Agnes Church and Visitation Church, both of which have been empty since October 2007.
The buildings have been exempt from property taxes for decades because of their religious purpose. But state law dictates that such properties get taxed when they’re no longer being used by a church.
The new parish already has spent about $150,000, mostly to heat the buildings to a minimum, according to the Rev. James Monaco, pastor.
“We’re hemorrhaging right now with the carrying costs,” he said.
But the parish soon may see some relief: A Buddhist group has proposed purchasing both former Catholic churches for use as a meditation and prayer center.
“They really have a great vision for it,” said Monaco.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Disclaimer
No responsibility or liability shall attach itself to either myself or to the blogspot ‘Clerical Whispers’ for any or all of the articles placed here.
The placing of an article hereupon does not necessarily imply that I agree or accept the contents of the article as being necessarily factual in theology, dogma or otherwise.
Sotto Voce
(Source: BNCR)