Church eyed for support center

The city of Northampton wants to buy a shuttered Catholic church building that the current owner plans to demolish.

The city’s director of planning and sustainability in a letter to O’Connell Development Group of Holyoke this month said Northampton would pay $550,000 for the St. John Cantius Church, and use the site for a planned community center to support struggling residents, The Daily Hampshire Gazette reported.

St. John Cantius and four other churches in town were consolidated by the Roman Catholic Diocese in 2010 to form a single parish.

The diocese sold St. John’s to O’Connell last year for $1.26 million.