St. John Vianney/St. George Church (Pittsburgh, Allentown: condominiums, new home, neighborhood)

[Jrn14]

I know a lot of people on this forum are into historical preservation throughout the city so I figured I would post this here.

St. John Vianney Church closes as activists pursue appeal | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Mass signals end for St. John Vianney Parish in Pittsburgh's Allentown neighborhood | TribLIVE

So my church closed yesterday it was pretty sad for me since although I'm not a "devout" catholic that building still has a lot of history with me and my family and I'm sure it hit others much harder than myself.

Regardless of your religious affiliation the building is beautiful and in bad shape. I believe the dioceses wants to demolish the building which would be heartbreaking. I'm not sure what the long term plans for the building would be but I believe there is a go fund me project to raise money for the repairs. In case anyone would be interested.

https://www.gofundme.com/savestgeorg...tm_medium=wdgt

[Merge]

Hey... do me a favor, if possible. Several weeks ago I was walking around Allentown taking pics and a woman invited me in to snap a few of the church. She told me about her group's preservation efforts, and gave me a card which I promptly lost. Do you know any contact info, so I can send the shots I took?

[Jrn14]

I am not sure who the individual might have been but I'm sure you could find them here. I believe the group is pretty small so I'm sure the person you talked to is active on the facebook page and probably has access to that email account.

https://sites.google.com/site/savestgeorge/contact-us

Email: savestgeorge@gmail.com
Voicemail: 412-502-5062 Fax: 1-888-210-4946
Mailing Address:
St. George Church Preservation Society
PO BOX 4228
Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Sign up for our email list by clicking here.

Become a part of the
SGCPS Group
on Facebook by clicking here.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by Jrn14

Regardless of your religious affiliation the building is beautiful and in bad shape. I believe the dioceses wants to demolish the building which would be heartbreaking. I'm not sure what the long term plans for the building would be but I believe there is a go fund me project to raise money for the repairs. In case anyone would be interested.

The Catholic diocese says they have no plans for the structure. Since the church is gone , performing the repairs is only a stop-gap kind of thing.


Someone is going to need to buy it, either to bring a new church in or re-purpose the building for a restaurant, night club, condominiums, or banquet hall. The difficulty with any of the re-purposes is the fact that Allentown is a pretty crappy neighborhood.

[Merge]

Originally Posted by Jrn14

I am not sure who the individual might have been but I'm sure you could find them here. I believe the group is pretty small so I'm sure the person you talked to is active on the facebook page and probably has access to that email account.

https://sites.google.com/site/savestgeorge/contact-us

Email: savestgeorge@gmail.com
Voicemail: 412-502-5062 Fax: 1-888-210-4946
Mailing Address:
St. George Church Preservation Society
PO BOX 4228
Pittsburgh, PA 15203

Sign up for our email list by clicking here.

Become a part of the
SGCPS Group
on Facebook by clicking here.

Thank you!

[Merge]

Originally Posted by I_Like_Spam

Someone is going to need to buy it, either to bring a new church in or re-purpose the building for a restaurant, night club, condominiums, or banquet hall. The difficulty with any of the re-purposes is the fact that Allentown is a pretty crappy neighborhood.

Mr. Spam, I'm not sure it's fair to tar an entire neighborhood with that brush you are using. Allentown has seen some business investment over the last few years. Its trajectory is not necessarily fated to be downhill.


Allentown Projects

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by Merge

Mr. Spam, I'm not sure it's fair to tar an entire neighborhood with that brush you are using. Allentown has seen some business investment over the last few years. Its trajectory is not necessarily fated to be downhill.


Allentown Projects

I'm sure that there are positivities in Allentown, but I think the reputation of the community among the public is in the dumper, making a lot of reuses of the St. George building a bit problematic at this point in time. Makes the idea of merchandising condos on Climax & Allen really speculative and not something I think could be successful.

Yes, things can rebound, and hopefully they do, but the new home construction over on Beltzhoover & Industry really didn't do so well.


Right now, at this point in time, I think the most likely project for success would be for another congregation to take the building over, like was done over at St.Joseph's in Mt. Oliver.

[Pughnose]

Gofundme appeal is trying to raise $90,000 "to establish a reserve fund for the reopening and restoration of the church."

The PPG article says, "the parish’s debt has reached more than $3 million, and its buildings need more than $1 million in repairs." Anybody know if there are many "parish's buildings" or if that would be the tab for just this one church? (Maybe each parish contains several decrepit churches? I'm not hip to the RC organization.)

I am thinking that their $90k might not get them very far, and a repair cost even remotely approaching $1M would seem a formidable obstacle to repurposing the structure.

[I_Like_Spam]

Originally Posted by Pughnose

Gofundme appeal is trying to raise $90,000 "to establish a reserve fund for the reopening and restoration of the church."

The PPG article says, "the parish’s debt has reached more than $3 million, and its buildings need more than $1 million in repairs." Anybody know if there are many "parish's buildings" or if that would be the tab for just this one church? (Maybe each parish contains several decrepit churches? I'm not hip to the RC organization.)

I am thinking that their $90k might not get them very far, and a repair cost even remotely approaching $1M would seem a formidable obstacle to repurposing the structure.

I think there are a couple of school buildings and a rectory on the property as well, St George had a grade school and high school back in the day. I don't know what the property all includes.


As far as the $1 Million repairs, it could be substantially less for a re-purpose. Steeple work is very expensive, and might be able to be shortcut on depending on the new purpose of the building. The Baptist Church at Bigelow & Bayard had very, very expensive steeple work done- hundreds of thousands of dollars.

[Bazzwell]

Buildings like this are found in every single town in this area and only the extremely hopeful think some further good can come from keeping them standing. These are incredibly expensive to maintain in any meaningful way and in most cases aren't worth the value of the lot they sit on.

The public and the faithful spoke clearly when they stopped filling the pews for services. Church officials simply responded to the message and smartly cut their losses by closing this franchise location.