Indianapolis preservation commission votes to save historic church
By Cat Sandoval, Melea VanOstrand
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INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The Indianapolis Historic Preservation Commission on Wednesday night unanimously voted that a 100-year-old church building should not be torn down.
The parish says the building’s demolition is needed, and it plans to appeal the decision in court.
Neighbors and preservation groups wanted to see the building saved.
The church belongs to St. Philip Neri Catholic Church. They’d asking the city to grant its request to remove the Church of the Holy Cross and void the historic designation based on the church’s right to religious freedom.
But across the street, neighbors said, before the vote, that tearing it down would strip the area of more than history: It would erase part of their identity. “We’ve had all of our weddings there, baptisms there, funerals there, we all went to school there,” said resident John Heidelberger. “It means a lot.”
Heidelberger didn’t want to see the church torn down, but hoped to see the property reused.
“How you going to have a Holy Cross neighborhood without the church? You can doing anything,” Heidelberger said. “Make it a park. I hope they can build single-family homes. No apartment buildings, no low-incoming housing because if they do that, it’ll drop the property value around here for everyone I think, and it’ll just be terrible.”
The Catholic Church has argued restoration doesn’t make sense, as it would cost between $7.5 million to $8.5 million to repair the building, with the property is valued at only $1 million.
The Rev. Jeffrey Dufresne, pastor of St. Philip Neri Parish, said in a statement before the vote, “The city’s historic designation has placed a significant burden on our parish and cost us over $80,000 in the past year, nearly 20% of our budget, which is money that could have been spent on our mission at St. Philip Neri, had the IHPC not gotten involved. More importantly, the decision of what to do with Holy Cross belongs to the St. Philip Neri Church, and the city’s involvement represents an overreach and violation of our constitutional rights.”
Mark Dollase, vice president of preservation services at Indiana Landmarks, disagreed. Before Wednesday night’s vote, he said a lot of viable options have been proposed for the property. “There has been everything from an events facility, to childcare related facility, to housing.”
The property was approved as a protected historic site a year and a half ago. Neighbors and preservationists before the vote said they hoped that the history and meaning tied to the church is not forgotten.
Dollase said, “I hope that it opens to door to the possibility that the archdiocese is willing to sit down with the community and say ‘Look guys, we can’t do this, and we need these resources that would come from the sale of the property to do the good work that they do in the St. Philip Neri congregation.’”
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