From Atlantic Cities:
When it comes to the holy trinity of art, architecture, and religion, few buildings are more significant than the 1898 Methodist Church in Norwalk, Connecticut. Anchoring a main street, the Romanesque-style church features a stained-glass rose window designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany himself. The founders of American Methodism preached there. Given its prominence and pedigree, should the church’s governing body be allowed to sell the building for development, as it is currently trying to do?
The U.S. Constitution, according to many observers, says yes, but historic preservationists beg to differ. Who decides?
In cities nationwide, churches are struggling to maintain the physical plant. Congregations are dwindling, budgets are tight and buildings are becoming aging white elephants. Many denominations, perhaps most notably the Catholic Church, are closing and selling off their buildings to stay afloat.
But these old churches are beloved landmarks, whether people worship there or not. Churches are key to a city’s architectural character and its social and religious history, preservationists say. Often, these advocates will stamp a capital L on these landmarks through official historic designation. At the state or local level, such designations can limit what happens to church buildings by preventing significant alterations or demolition.
Such limitations, church leaders say, can pose economic hardships that interfere with their constitutional right to the free exercise of religion. A spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland, for example, recently characterized the city’s effort to landmark six churches as “extremely offensive.” Federal and state laws, particularly the Religious Land Use and Institutional Persons Act, protect religious groups from some property use restrictions.
But the case law goes both ways. The most famous federal case on the issue, going back two decades, is St. Bartholomew’s Church vs. the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The church, whose sanctuary is a designated landmark, sought to demolish its adjacent community house to build a high-rise office tower, the income from which would support religious activities. “If we don’t have more money,” a church official said at the time, “we won’t be able to preserve the very building that the preservationists are concerned about: the church sanctuary.” The U.S. Court of Appeals ultimately upheld the landmark.
Just a few years later, however, the U.S. District Court of Maryland decided that this precedent did not apply to a case involving a historic monastery in the city of Cumberland. There the court overturned the city’s denial of a demolition permit for the monastery, ruling that its free-exercise rights had been violated.
So, cities are often left to decide these issues one controversial case at a time. Two years ago, a D.C. court ruled in favor of the Third Church of Christ, Scientist, whose leaders wanted to raze its hulking Brutalist building, located near the White House, to create a more traditional (and easier to maintain) worship space. The D.C. Historic Preservation Office had landmarked the building – designed by the office of I.M. Pei – in response to the original demo request. Earlier this year, the New York City Council denied a landmark designation for the historic Grace Episcopal Church in Queens after the church cited the financial burden of maintaining the structure according to historic standards.
The challenge for preservationists is coming up with alternatives that protect a church’s historic character while providing cost-effective long-term solutions. Sometimes the cure proves as burdensome as the disease. In Philadelphia, the 1849* Church of the Assumption had sold its building to Siloam, a nonprofit HIV/AIDs group, which originally intended to maintain the historic building for its uses – a supposed victory for preservation. Yet this proved economically untenable. Siloam is now trying to sell the building, leading to yet another preservation appeal.
“This trend is accelerating,” says architect Richard Wagner, whose Baltimore firm David H. Gleason Associates has adapted historic churches. “When these churches are closed down by their congregations, they’re willing to sell it to whoever will pay. These buildings do not have many takers, because they’re hard to adapt and have a lot of cubic footage. So you’re not left with many options from a preservation standpoint.”
Back in Norwalk, where the Methodist church is currently listed for sale at $1.2 million, the Norwalk Preservation Trust is now working with the state to either develop a new program or leverage existing law to save the building.
“These churches were built by congregations who were very proud of them, who created these great architectural works of art,” says Trust President Tod Bryant. “They may be difficult and expensive to maintain now, but that’s why a greater program to help them do that would be useful. No one’s saying they can’t worship the way they want to or go bankrupt in the process. But the congregations who built these buildings saw them as part of the worship, and that sentiment should be honored as well.”
Maybe whatever happens in Norwalk will help define precedent nationwide. But if the past is any guide – and it always is, as preservationists would say – then this issue will likely stay muddled for some time to come.
In my mind, a complicating factor in this discussion is the tax-free status that churches have enjoyed. When the church wants to sell their property to CVS, for example, many people defend the church by saying that they are just acting in their own self interest by seeking the highest bidder for the property.
My question is: Does the church not owe anything to the community since they have resided in that location with tax benefits paid for by the community? Is there not any responsibility that comes along with that tax-free status?
Mark – excellent point. These tax-exempt congregations should have a personal responsibility for the surrounding community. In my opinion, Union Ave UMC (in conjunction with St. Luke’s UMC) took no responsibility and showed absolutely no concern for the community they left behind. Without a doubt, they acted in their own self-interest.
What congregations don’t always understand is that sometimes the building itself is more important than the organization that resides in it.
Amen and amen.
You’re nutty….no church has an “obligation” NOT to act in their own interests !
Every business acts in their best interest or for the interest of their owners or stockkholders
Today’s churches are no different with respect to ROI…the same thing might be said about multi-million dollar budgets of many national 501′s…just look around
what the hell do I care about a church getting top dollar for their property in a free capitalistic economy ? I couldn’t care less if they sold it to CVS, IRS,FBI, Danny Owens, or Disney World.
it’s called a free market system
You don’t like the tax codes ? fine…then change the goddam things, but churches don’t “owe” you any explanantion, and they damn sure don’t need the “community’s” permission, authorization, or approval
get real…let the church do what it wants to do with THEIR OWN property..
that issue is the least of Memphis’ woes…..screw CVS and the church who sold it to them
Churches are tax exempt and the rest of us pay taxes for the services, notably public safe, that they receive. In return for that tax exempt status, they should act in the best interest of the community, and in this regard, their impulse should not be greed but a Godlike answer that serves their community. I know that’s a hard concept these days…
SCM – agreed.
What do you think needs to happen to prevent another situation like the Union Ave UMC/CVS disaster? Obviously, the mindset at City Hall must change, but what steps should be in place before it reaches that point?
I think that the task is to show that there is a constituency for smart adaptive reuse beyond Memphis Heritage. We have to prove that they can’t pigeon hole us as obsessive preservationists but average citizens who value smart neighborhood policies. We can’t let the powers-that-be dismiss us categorically but see that we are a growing group who takes design seriously and will hold elected officials accountable for their disregard.
Agreed SCM. That was an extremely important part of the “conversation” that was lost (or drowned out) during the CVS demolition debate. While many would have rather seen the church adaptively reused, some were resigned to the fact that the church might indeed fall to the wrecking ball. However, we wanted to see CVS conform to the urban design guidelines that had received almost unanimous support until that point by the general population and was well on its way towards adoption by the city. After all it was hardly a coincidence that the CVS proposal occurred when it did seeing as it only barely managed to slip in ahead of the adoption of the new regulations.
I think it did create an opportunity to open at least a few eyes on the council- if not the majority- to the importance of urban design and quality of the built environment. A stronger approach, especially in the CVS case, would have been to educate the council per examples across the country where CVS and its competitors have in fact adaptively reused a variety of existing structures. Additional, very public examples of the employment of the CVS urban prototype in other cities, including locations in the southeast, would have added weight to the quality debate. Finally, all available means should have been employed to assure the Methodist Church that efforts were not aimed to block the sale of the facility but to assure that what took its place would contribute to the health of the surrounding neighborhood. Of course that assumes that the middle party (the church) is honest in its motivation, in its presentation of the facts and was open regarding its intentions which in this case St. Lukes United Methodist- specifically Rev. Mark Matheny and Rev. Brigitte French- was not.
Memphis Heritage and others have hopefully learned from this experience and will apply such lessons in the future.