Vacant Churches Find New Life as Condos
Empty church buildings for sale across the country are being resurrected as condo developments.
Read more: New Life for Closed Hospitals: Condos
“The same qualities that once made churches cultural and artistic centers – their central locations in neighborhoods, their size, their vast windows, and cavernous chambers – also make them perfect for a real estate market that commodifies light and space in a crowded city,” Curbed reports.
Many churches with dwindling attendance numbers are downsizing their buildings, while others are selling their old churches to build new ones. Religious construction is expected to rise in 2016, The Wall Street Journal reports. In either case, a record 1,502 sales of religious-affiliated properties in 2014. That is nearly double the 889 sales made in 2010, The Christian Post reports.
Churches can be pricey to renovate into a residential unit. For example, in Newburgh, New York, Mike Lidgus, a retired aerospace engineer, purchased a former Christian Science Church for $30,000 from the government. He is renovating it, which so far has included a $50,000 new slate roof and $40,000 in copper piping alone.
But the aesthetics of a converted church may attract those who like lofts, developers are finding. The high ceilings, big windows, and excess of space tend to be a big attraction to these converted areas.
"Industrial spaces aren’t as easy to come by as they once were because real estate developers are on to that," says Sharon Butler, a painter who previously kept her studio in a church in Old Mystic, Conn. "Churches are sort of undiscovered. You can find a really big space and they’re relatively inexpensive, because who else is going to buy it?"
Source: “Living on a Prayer,” Curbed.com (April 13, 2016) and “Why Some Big City Churches Are Turning Into Condo Developments,” Deseret News (April 16, 2016)
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