Neighbors, preservationists and some parishioners ask city to get St. Mary to reconsider plans to take down 1014 South St.
Dave Bangert|Journal & Courier
LAFAYETTE, Ind. – If St. Mary Cathedral is open to pleas to save a 19th century house it owns, targeted to come down to make way for a new rectory for its priests to live, parish leaders weren’t saying Tuesday morning after neighbors – and a few St. Mary parishioners – unloaded on what the church was about to do to the neighborhood that bears its name.
Mike Gibson, building committee chairman for the 152-year-old church, left Lafayette City Hall with no other comment, other than a promise that St. Mary was taking note of the 2,500 signatures on a petition against a permit application to demolish a two-story, red brick Italianate house at 1014 South St., just down the hill from the church.
Minutes earlier, Lafayette’s board of works refused to waive a 60-day waiting period for the demolition permit for the house – a stipulation available to the city to give owners of properties that contribute to a national historic district time to find options other than demolition.
Beyond that delay, Ed Chosnek, the city’s attorney, said, the city has no real control over what St. Mary Cathedral does, other than possibly acting as a mediator between church leaders and those representing the St. Mary Historic District, the Wabash Valley Trust for Historic Preservation, the Tippecanoe County Historical Association and Indiana Landmarks.
Demolition protest: Time ticking, protest grows for St. Mary’s historic demolition plans
Each was represented among more than a dozen people who argued that demolition would be a mistake for a house built in 1884 for Meyer Rose, a partner in a cigar factory and an early leader in Lafayette’s Jewish community. The church has owned the house and adjoining carriage house and rented the apartments in them since 2000, according to Tippecanoe County property records.
The common thread of the protest: St. Mary so far had been unwilling to talk with the neighborhood about the plans, other than to post the demolition permit last week on the 19th century wrought iron fence that surrounds the house at 1014 South St.
“One of the things (the church) isn’t doing is talk to us,” said Bill Baugh, who lives in the 800 block of South Street. “It doesn’t interface us, it doesn’t come to us. It brings its bulldozers and its lawyers. I would ask that you people (on the board of works) request that the church meet with the neighborhood, and let’s see what we can do.”
Matthew Weller, vice president of the Wabash Valley Trust, gave city officials a folder with 95 pages of signatures collected through an online petition posted Thursday, a day after St. Mary posted yellow signs with details about the demolition permit application.
“Our community loves St. Mary’s,” Weller said. “And we would like to see this love reflected back into the community by preserving this significant and historic structure.”
Two St. Mary parishioners joined neighbors and preservationists in calling for their church to try something else. Sean Rotar, a St. Mary member, said demolition “shouldn’t be an option, at all,” and that the church should “avoid what would be, in my opinion, a calamitous mistake that is unworthy of the good we oweto our neighbors.”
Walter Griffin, who said he is on St. Mary’s parish council, said church members didn’t have much information about the plans to take down the house, either.
“The proposed demolition of 1014 South St. goes against anything that we should do as a parish,” Griffin said. “I think it would be a big scar on the community and cause ill-will in our community.”
Laura and Mark Ward have owned an open lot at South and McGrath streets, just across from St. Mary, for the past two years. They said they had planned to build a home there in the coming years. But they told city officials that they were open to moving the Meyer Rose house across the street, if the church is open to working with them.
“Right now,” Laura Ward said, “we’ll just wait to hear what the church wants to do.”
In 2011, when St. Mary demolished two 19th century houses at 1211 and 1213 Columbia St., the church offered the structures to anyone who could move them. Time ran out on that offer when the church razed the houses for what leaders said would be used for a St. Mary School playground. That corner now is designated for a St. Mary School expansion, according to a church master plan shared with neighbors in 2017.
When Norm Childress, a board of works member, asked to hear more about the church’s plans, Gibson kept it short.
“I really have no comment to make today, because we thought it was just going to be whether we waive the 60 days or no,” Gibson said.
In the plans shared with neighbors more than a year ago, St. Mary was looking to build a parish office near the corner of Columbia and 11th streets, put the addition to St. Mary School along one full block of 13th Street and add a circle drive that would feed what is now the back of the elementary building, leading from Columbia Street.
Neighbors have complained that they were blindsided by the demolition application, after being told in 2017 that St. Mary intended to remodel 1014 South St. as living quarters its parish priests.
“It doesn’t even look like the tenants knew about this until the signs went up,” said Tommy Kleckner, director for the Indiana Landmarks’ western regional office. “That’s pretty telling.”
“I think it’s too bad that we were told that we’d hear more today, only to be met with silence and no comment,” Weller said.
The St. Mary neighborhood, anchored by the cathedral’s footprint midway up the hill between South and Columbia streets, is one of Lafayette’s 10 National Historic Districts. (An inventory of structures done for the St. Mary Historic District called 1014 South St. – with its limestone window sills and crown window hoods – a notable property.) The national designation offers recognition for properties and an area, but it offers little protection from demolition or preservation.
Homeowners on the hill attempted in 2010 to bump up the St. Mary Neighborhood to a local historic district, which would have made demolition and significant changes to the exterior of structures more difficult. The Lafayette City Council rejected that bid.
Kleckner said that if the church is balking at renovations because of the money it would take, he said there are government grant programs available to offset costs. He said Indiana Landmarks stood ready to help navigate the system, if St. Mary wants.
Joe Bumbleburg, St. Mary’s attorney, said Tuesday that he didn’t have a timeline for demolition or reconstruction after the 60-day waiting period.
“The answer to your question, I don’t know,” Bumbleburg said. “We have to go back and report to our principals about what we heard today. … All these things we heard this morning are out there in the air, waiting to be considered.”
Reach Dave Bangert at 765-420-5258 or at dbangert@jconline.com. Follow on Twitter: @davebangert.
