St. Joseph Church has stood in Pittsburgh’s Manchester neighborhood since the late 19th century.
Thanks to a vote from the city’s Historic Review Commission last week, it will stand for at least 90 days longer.
The church, located on Liverpool Street, was facing the threat of demolition. Pittsburgh Department of Permits, Licenses and Inspections Director David Green called the structure “dangerous and unsafe.”
The Historic Review Commission last week heard from residents who pleaded for the structure to be saved from demolition, highlighting its long legacy in the neighborhood and potential future uses. Commissioners agreed to pause any efforts to raze the church for 90 days.
That gives Manchester native Danielle Lewis-McLaurin time to complete due diligence and, she hopes, buy the church. The New York real estate agent wants to purchase the property, fix it up and turn it into a community center.
Lewis-McLaurin acknowledged the old church needs serious repairs, including fixing a hole in the roof.
“We see the plaster is falling down,” Lewis-McLaurin said at the March 4 review commission meeting. “That doesn’t scare me.”
Her daughter was baptized at the church in April 2003. In an effort to convince commissioners to preserve the building, she promised that she would put up nets and scaffolding to protect passersby from the risk of falling debris as soon as she took possession of the building.
She wasn’t the only one to beg commissioners to have mercy on the historic church.
“We are having a conversation about ripping the heart out of a neighborhood,” longtime Manchester resident Stanley Lowe said.
Julie Kaigler, another Manchester resident, said she walks by the church daily, puzzling at why no one has so much as put a tarp on the damaged roof. If officials were to tear it down, she pointed out, there would be no reversing the decision and saving the historic structure.
“Having it returned to the neighborhood would be fantastic,” she said.
Some problems at the building have been “decades in the making,” Green said, explaining that portions of the building have collapsed. The hole in the roof dates to at least 2017 and vegetation has been climbing up the exterior for years, he said.
Still, Green told commissioners he realized that a decision about tearing down the building, as he recommended, “carries a lot of weight.”
“Demolition is a pretty final act,” he said. “Once the building’s gone, it’s gone.”
The church was founded as a German parish in 1867, according to the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh. As the German population in Manchester grew, a previous church at the corner of Franklin and Fulton streets needed to be replaced with a larger building.
Construction on the existing structure began in 1897. The church was dedicated the following September.
Commissioners last week granted a 90-day reprieve on demolition in hopes that the pause would give Lewis-McLaurin time to finish due diligence and — if she still wanted to — buy the property and start repairs to make it safe.
“Just in the nick of time, I think we have a solution here that can be a benefit and a blessing to everybody,” said Matthew Craig, executive director of the Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh.