BUFFALO, NY (WKBW) — Preservation Buffalo Niagara is teaming up with parishioners at five Buffalo Catholic churches seeking landmark status.
It's part of the Save Our Sacred Sites effort, landmark status would prevent the churches from being torn down.
The Buffalo Common Council’s Legislation Committee held public hearings Tuesday for each of the five churches.
"We have to be proactive on trying to save and get these ready for renovation,” Bernice Radle remarked.
The diocese plans to close four of the churches that are up for landmark status:
- St. Rose of Lima, North Buffalo
- St. John Kanty, East Buffalo
- St. Thomas Aquinas, South Buffalo
- Our Lady of Perpetual Help, South Buffalo
Parishioners at a fifth church, St. Stanislaus on Buffalo's East Side, are also seeking the preservation status. St. Stans will remain open, under the diocese’s Road to Renewal, however, St. John Kanty is expected to merge with St. Stans.
Preservation Buffalo Niagara Executive Director Bernice Radle was the first to speak before common council members on why it would be so important to preserve Catholic churches, as the Buffalo Diocese gets ready to shutter 78 parishes and worship sites.
"It costs over a million dollars to demolish a church right now – million dollars,” Radle noted.
Fillmore District Common Council Member Mitch Nowakowski is part of the effort designate the five churches as landmarks.
“Do you worry, though, that they'll sit idle and vacant?” I asked.
“I don't," Nowakowski said."We've seen adaptive reuses happen all throughout the state and in the world, and it's oftentimes that notion that preservation is a roadblock in society or in the City of Buffalo development, but we're sophisticated enough, and it has been done before, where churches and structures have been adaptively reused for the test of time. By preserving them and their architectural integrity makes them significant and opens them up to resources that can be adaptively reused.”
But the Diocese told me “Landmark designation" will not “deter” the diocese from placing those churches on the market.
However, Radle told lawmakers the diocese puts too many unreasonable restrictions on what the building can be reused and not become a burden for the city.
“I want to say that the Catholic Diocese restrictions are bananas. They won’t let a restaurant in. They won’t let astrology, no fortune telling, no school – no nothing, we need to demand that they change their restrictions,” Radle explained.
“You would not want to see this church demolished and turned into something that would not be compatible with the neighborhood,” remarked Craig Spears, former St. Rose Parishioner.
The diocese wants to close St. Rose of Lima Church in North Buffalo and Spears supports the preservation status.
“It’s a tremendously positive event, and I think it will preserve this church and stabilize the entire neighborhood here in at Winston and Parker and Parkside,” replied Spears. “It would prevent a developer from buying the property and demolishing the church.”
Paul McDonnell helped draft the preservation application for the church and he's certain it could be redeveloped if sold.
"It's got the steeple, it's got a choir loft, it's got a full pipe organ, and the other thing too is that the materials of this church are wonderful. There's no plaster, it's all brick, it's all quarry tile, so it's obviously a well-built church,” McDonnell noted. “Whether it remains a church, it could be a church from a different denomination, it could be something else. You probably won't see any commercial just because of the neighborhood, but what it does, preservation gives people a chance to have a voice.”
The council committee agreed Tuesday to approve the landmark status for all five churches. The full common council is expected to take a final vote on the landmark status of these five churches at the October 29 regular meeting.
