[MassHistPres] Fwd: How to catalyze adaptive reuse of a church

[Benjamin W. Murphy]

I believe the church that Ralph wrote about is in
immediate danger of being torn down. I have it on good
authority that a developer does have plans for the
site  that include knocking down the building. 

Does anyone know of any successful cases in the state
that have prevented a landmark building from being
razed when there is no existing restrictions or
regulations on the site.

Ben Murphy
Springfield Preservation Trust

--- slater at alum.rpi.edu wrote:

> From: <slater at alum.rpi.edu>
> To: <masshistpres at cs.umb.edu>
> Date: Mon, 19 Nov 2007 06:40:05 -0800
> Subject: [MassHistPres] How to catalyze adaptive
> reuse of a church
> 
> There is an 1860's church in Springfield that is not
> within a local
> historic district and does not have any state-held
> preservation
> restrictions on it. It was closed by the Roman
> Catholic Diocese of
> Springfield and is up for sale. The church sits on
> land that could be
> considered "prime" for non-historic use -- a street
> with a lot of
> automobile traffic, right next to Route 91 (it's St.
> Joseph's Roman
> Catholic Church, for those familiar with
> Springfield).
> 
> Given there is no legal protection for this
> building, and no
> governmental interest in the building, I'm looking
> for specific ideas
> how a local historical commission can drum up
> private interest for
> adaptive reuse. Absent of incentive funds, are there
> any steps that we
> might try to incite someone to buy this building and
> convert it into
> something else?
> 
> Ralph Slate
> Springfield Historical Commission
> 
> ******************************
> For administrative questions regarding this list,
> please contact Christopher.Skelly at state.ma.us
> directly.  PLEASE DO NOT "REPLY" TO THE WHOLE LIST. 
> 
> MassHistPres mailing list
> MassHistPres at cs.umb.edu
>
http://mailman.cs.umb.edu/mailman/listinfo/masshistpres
> ********************************
> 



      ____________________________________________________________________________________
Be a better pen pal. 
Text or chat with friends inside Yahoo! Mail. See how.  http://overview.mail.yahoo.com/