For Sale: Empty Catholic churches
Assumption on Spring Garden St. and St. Anthony's near the Navy Home are among the ex-church complexes seeking buyers as the Philly Church fades.
For Sale: Empty Catholic churches
Joseph N. DiStefano
The long decline of Philadelphia's once-powerful Roman Catholic church has raised the question of what's the best use for its empty former church-school-convent-rectory complexes, especially in the recovering neighborhoods around Center City.
Some (like St. Agatha's on 39th St. in West Philly) are suited for apartments. But others, including the big but hastily-built mid-1800s missionary complexes, need millions in repairs, and find few likely buyers, other than developers who'd like to knock the old structures flat, over the objection of Philadelphia historical preservationists.
The former Catholic Church of the Assumption at 11th and Spring Garden Streets is for sale, along with its neighboring former school and residence, after the nonprofit Siloam AIDS ministry found it was unable to win city approval to demolish the angular, worn stone-and-plaster temple over opposition from the Callowhill Neighborhood Association. (See photos here.)
Siloam has hired James Scott and Michael Barmash of brokerage Colliers International to find a buyer. The group is selling "with great sadness," said interim Siloam boss Cathy Maguire. Siloam had hoped to build an HIV/AIDS service center there. She hopes to raise around $1.7 million. Historical preservationist Andrew Palewski, who helped the successful push to have Assumption historically listed, in part because Catholic Saints Bishop John Neumann and Mother Katharine Drexel ministered there in the mid-1800s, told me he's pleased Siloam is selling instead of knocking the hall down.
The former St. Anthony of Padua church at 23d and Fitzwater Streets, not far below South, in the onetime Irish immigrant neighborhood of Schuylkill (now "Southwest Center City"), is also for sale by its current owner, Greater St. Matthew Baptist Church. The predominantly African American congregation is moving to a site north of Center City, with more parking, says broker Andrea Boelter who is helping Mike McCann manage the sale at Prudential Fox and Roach.
St. Matthews says it bought the property for a modest $325,000 in 1999. Pru is listing the property for $2.5 million. Standing across from Toll Bros.' Naval Square residential development at the site of the old naval retirement home, close to Childrens Hospital's and the University of Pennsylvania's planned east-of-Schuylkill expansions. The church at St. Boniface, on Norris Square in lower Kensington, a former parish run by Neumann's old Redemptorist order of priests, also faces demolition under plans by Patricia DiCarlo's Norris Square Civic Association, which proposes a housing, commercial and education center on the parish site. The Redemptorists have moved to the vibrant Visitation parish and school up on Lehigh Avenue. Empty Catholic sites elsewhere in Philadelphia and Delaware County are also for sale. In Northeast Philly some still-functioning churches with closed-down schools but large elderly communicant populations have invited funeral homes to take over buildings.
The key is that Catholic parishes last for decades, Catholic dioceses last for centuries and the Catholic Church lasts forever.— BobSG- Actually, nothing lasts forever. — mindstorms
- Amazing, the lead article 5 out of 7 days a week is how bad the School District of Philadelphia is, or the flash mobs. Consequently, the Catholic Schools have produced high percentages of graduates who are constructive, law-abiding members of society, tax payers, city dwellers, entrepreneurs, mayors, etc...and some people are reveling in the demise of the Catholic Schools and their Churches?...future generations will scratch their heads!— reasonableihope
Comment removed.- Let the preservationists pay the taxes on a replacement condo construction...If they can't do that , tell them to shut up and sit down...None of us can support thier pie in the sky dreams of holding onto a dead past......Let evelpers do thier thing....it means jobs, residents, taxes and growth in a dying city.....Hello.....— nuggett
- The Catholic church and faith are both ancient relics and are no longer relevant!— Yankees For Life
- Comment removed.
- Et antiquum documentum, Novo cedat ritui; Praestet fides supplementum, Sensuum defectui. -- Joe D.— Joe D
- Comment removed.
- Philadelphia and other older cities have a huge number of cavernous churches that few to no modern congregations want. Bulldoze all but the most architectually significant and let developers return the land to the tax rolls by building housing or commercial development. Above all, high-value Center City land should not be transferred to shoestring-funded charitable organizations. Let the market determine the best use of the land and tax dollars will flow to the city. Then the city can use the tax revenues to fund the shoestring budget charitable organizations.— Mark in Mount Airy
- To Joe D:
That sounds like a Latin hymn sung at benediction.— BobSG - What a great craft brewery/beer hall a facility like that would make...— The Curmudgeon
- I agree with Joe D. The Catholic Church has not lasted for 2,000 years by holding onto antiquated buildings.— BobSG
- Its time for the church to give it up as it will have its hands full trying to keep the active parishes open............which will be the next shoe to drop— chesterfield
- I went to Resso. No problem with them getting rid of the convent, though I do remember my hearing tests in there. Raise your hand when you hear a beep. Also, the issue is they are just too large. I'm going to an Episcopalian church right now after the scandal. It's beautiful, but smaller, and only has 2 services on Sunday. That seems to be a better way to run it. I have no problem with the Catholics who want to attend mass and are comfortable with the ritual. I know I am. The issue is the people in charge. How many of these Churches lost funding and good priest candidates because the people in charge didn't protect the parishoners?— HandNik
