With planning, communities can embrace closed schools

With the recent announcement that the Archdiocese of Philadelphia would close or merge 34 Catholic schools in Philadelphia, a city already yoked with an unenviable number of vacant lots and deteriorating buildings (not to mention surface parking lots), is presented with a fresh inventory whose decay potentially starts now.

While the educational challenges presented by these changes are daunting, and many schools are battling to remain active (and I do hope they succeed), forethought should be given to the potential reuse of these buildings so that they can continue to serve their neighborhoods. This effort should be undertaken now, long before market pressures and building decay force the archdiocese and communities to make rash decisions that bring an unfitting end (usually demolition) to noble buildings created for noble purposes. It's time to develop an action plan for the transition of these buildings long before they are slouching inexorably toward blight.

As we've seen in Philadelphia over the last few years, planning has the power to bring communities together. A community planning process for each closing property can identify needs in the neighborhood and possible re-uses, as well as provide parameters for redevelopment, welcome guidelines that will create certainty for developers.

The city is rich with organizations experienced in this sort of process: Partners for Sacred Spaces helps communities and organizations envision creative uses for religious buildings; the Community Design Collaborative has helped many community organizations develop plans for nascent assets; PennPraxis uses the resources of the University of Pennsylvania to engage citizens and create visions for solving problems. The archdiocese also has great in-house experience in reusing school buildings to create senior housing at St. John Neumann in South Philadelphia and Nativity BVM in Port Richmond.

Reuse takes imagination, patience, and resolve. Successful projects will have common characteristics:

Leadership committed to the project for the long haul.

Community engagement and support.

The will to follow up on ideas generated in a planning process.

The ability to create or partner with an organization (likely a nonprofit) to manage the property.

Patience in identifying resources or developers who recognize the opportunity and respect the community's intention.

These buildings can accommodate a mix of uses, often in concert, including: housing, artists' studios, theaters, community groups, training programs, commercial development, and neighborhood meeting spaces, as well as continuing to serve as schools for other institutions.

As with many urban problems, preservation of dormant religious buildings has been on the horizon for years, and we know there will only be more and more of these assets threatened as schools are closed and parishes are consolidated. Experience tells us that without a plan, these onetime community anchors can fall into ruin.

The Church of the Assumption on Spring Garden Street is an example of a building abandoned by the archdiocese without enough thought given to whether another organization could care for it. Siloam, a nonprofit with an admirable mission but without the capacity to maintain the church, is now petitioning the courts for permission to demolish it.

These structures are the bones of a vibrant city, a necessity as Philadelphia struggles to maintain a fabric that makes it attractive to newcomers and different from the suburban-style cities it competes with for talent. The archdiocese and parish leaders should work with our local design community, neighborhood groups, and the City Planning Commission to leverage resources and find solutions.

It's important to remember that our city is, in a way, blessed to have these problems: beautiful buildings with communities that love them. We shouldn't let that opportunity crumble.