Preservation group develops plan to save local churches

BUFFALO, N.Y. — The Catholic Diocese of Buffalo has announced plans that could involve closing up to 30 of its churches, including 14 in the city of Buffalo.

This worries local preservationists enough to come up with a new idea to save the historic structures.

They even came up with a name for their plan: “Save Our Sacred Sites.”

There are examples throughout the city of old churches not only reused by other congregations, but also converted into housing, offices, art galleries and recording studios.

However, there are also many examples of churches that have closed their doors and decades later continue to rot, to the point of being condemned, where either nothing was done or the best plans developed proved prohibitive and failed.

With so many churches likely to close at once, conservatives came up with the idea of ​​preventing that from happening.

“We are going to try to get local landmark status for every church that is in danger of being closed by the Catholic diocese,” said Bernice Radle, executive director of Buffalo Niagara Preservation.

To obtain historic landmark status, the Church would have to retain the properties until they are sold, according to Radle.

“They should keep the utilities on and keep the building safe. However, if they don’t, that’s when we can step in and put pressure on them to do the right thing,” she said.

It would also prevent anyone who buys the buildings from demolishing them, significantly altering them, or stripping them of their facilities, etc.

“A local landmark status will provide protection against that,” Radle said.

Conservationists have no authority to designate something as a local landmark. The ultimate authority on the matter rests with the Buffalo Common Council, and Fillmore District Councilmember Mitch Nowakowski supports the effort.

According to Nowakowski, while landmark designation may deter some developers from repurposing buildings “because it adds a layer of preservation protection, which sometimes leads to developers not wanting to adhere to those standards,” he says. and Radle also insist it could attract others.

“When you achieve local landmark status, you can then use that as a way to open the doors to other grants that are available,” Radle said. “Developers or community members who are interested in purchasing the churches will understand if they have access to historic tax credits, which almost all of the historic buildings you see renovated use.”

Nowakowski added, “Developers have been able to use historic tax credits to do adaptive reuse in churches for a very long time. Our local development community can and should be sophisticated enough to access these credits to mobilize the dollars needed to carry out appropriate adaptive reuse of these historic structures.

However, when it comes to Catholic churches in particular, there are factors that may limit their redevelopment, largely due to restrictive clauses that the diocese places in purchase contracts and that anyone purchasing them from the diocese agrees to respect.

“There are only so many uses you can put an old church to and the main one is either retail or housing,” Nowakowski said.

According to Radle, the covenants prohibit the use of former churches as restaurants, bars, strip clubs or facilities related to astrology or divination, among a host of other prohibited activities.

“We would really like to encourage the diocese to really rethink some of these standards,” Radle said. “I understand some of those restrictions, but if they can remove some of those clauses that are maybe a little more in line with what the community wants, like a restaurant, that way we can have a better chance of being successful in these buildings.

The effort to have the buildings designated as local landmarks is not only unique, but it also takes time and money.

Preservation Buffalo Niagara lacks both, explaining that the process can cost $2,500 just to initiate an application and take several months.

“So we are asking for donations to help with this effort and all of that can be found on the Preservation Buffalo Niagara website,” Radle said.