Residences Planned for Former Church
The Catholic Diocese has a deal in the works to sell the closed Immaculate Conception Church at the southwest corner of South Elmwood and Edward Street to a developer who is proposing a residential conversion project. The unknown developer is considering plans to convert the rectory into apartments and the church into condominiums. Built in 1900, the church was closed in July due to a shrinking parish population. The adjacent rectory was constructed in 1906. Immaculate Conception School, which closed in 1987, is currently leased for educational purposes.
According to the Diocese website, there are still 56 Catholic churches in the city that, on average, are only 22% filled during weekend Masses. With a lengthy list of parish closings expected to be announced as part of a restructuring study currently underway, finding new uses for many of the aging, hulking structures is going to be difficult. There have been some successful adaptive reuses including the Upper West Side Arts Center, Karpeles Manuscript Libraries, King Urban Life Center, Ani DiFrancois The Church, and Parish Commons at 656 Elmwood to name a few. In the early 1990is the former Full Gospel Tabernacle at 231 Richmond Avenue at Bryant Street was converted into 16 residential condominiums. But for every success there are many more sitting vacant and rotting. Saving another on South Elmwood will be a good start.
Photo Credit: David @ FixBuffalo
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david t.
This would be a welcome asset in the neighborhood. I've been following the plight and planned neglect of a number of Catholic complexes (no pun) on the City's East Side for sometime.
The Immaculate Conception has 800K of needed repairs, yet isn't in Housing Court. The Bishop said it was no longer safe. He still lives in the City's most expensive and tax free house! Meanwhile as he slowly reveals his plans to close Catholic property all over the City, he's building another McChurch at the corner of Hickory and Eagle...go figure.
During the first round of church closings back in the early 90's the Church of the Transfiguration (Sycamore and Mills) was sold. It's ready to fall down with a taxpayer paid demolition! In 2003 a housing court warrant was issued and meanwhile a local attorney shields his mother from that warrant....Yes, true!
Here's the details... http://simurl.com/camtit
Great post WestCoast!
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M Rodgers - West Village
This is funny! A friend and I were talking about the reuse of this church after lunch today. I'll cll the appropriate parties and get the name of the developer.
This could be the start of something big!
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Shopitall
WCP
You are the super-sleuth masked crusader of BRO!
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bman
The adjacent rectory is beautiful. I hope the conversion is sensitive to both structures.
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Jon
Check out the photos from this church condo project. . . .
http://www.frontrangeliving.com/architecture/churchcondos.htm
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BFLORome
If they are CONDOs...I'm interested...'ownership' is needed...it will attract more people that will have a vested interest in the West Village...and Downtown B-LO...
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M Rodgers - West Village
Rome - right on the money! When my son visited this past Fall he wondered aloud why there are so many rentals in the new lofts and apts instead of owner occs. That seems to be a point of concern he has regarding his bank's investment in rehab/development.
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Perry Fisher
An intriguing property for this kind of re-use. The number of historical church properties no longer used for religious properties is beginning to rival that of abandoned business buildings in some cities. I hope we can re-use most of them. It's a great challenge.
If more "conventional" apartments were available for purchase in Buffalo, it might encourage more people to try part-year residence in the city, and eventually, to live there year round. By that I mean, new construction and conversions of existing apartment houses with more traditional room configurations, ceiling heights, windows, etc. might be more boradly appealing. I say this because I learned through hands-on experience with a number of conversions of institutional buildings, churches, and rectories to condos in other cities that initially their novelty brings great market acceptance, but they tend to make difficult re-sales.
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