Neighbors envision vacant former church in East Liberty as a public gathering place
People have lots of ideas for what the vacant former SS. Peter and Paul Catholic Church building in East Liberty could be.
They’re also quite sure what they don’t want it to be.
For all the blight on its facade, for all the eerie emptiness of its vast sanctuary interior — or maybe even because of it — nobody wants to see the church demolished.
Nor do they want its wide- open interior to be subdivided into offices or housing units.
What they want is for the building to resume its role as a public gathering place and a community asset — this time not as a specific kind of church but as some combination of a space for the arts, performances, meetings and recreation. Some even would like to see it serve as a nonsectarian place for spiritual reflection.
Such were the ideas resulting from a long period of canvassing ideas from the community for the East Liberty landmark. The building served for a century as a Catholic church before it was closed during a parish consolidation in 1992. The diocese sold it to a nondenominational church that was unable to sustain the building, and East Liberty Development Inc. was granted conservatorship of it last year.
Since then, working with local groups and the Philadelphiabased Partners for Sacred Places, ELDI has canvassed a broad range of neighbors and community groups. People poured in their ideas, and several architects helped sketch ideas for how they might be realized.
Some of these ideas were unveiled Friday for the first time at a meeting of groups involved in the process at Eastminster Presbyterian Church, located near the former SS. Peter and Paul.
“The church was obviously built to be of service,” said Matthew Craig, executive director of Young Preservationists Association of Pittsburgh, which is helping with the process. “But now as we are in this place in time, we’re envisioning new ways that it can be of service.”
More than 200 people took part in various walk-and-talk events to discuss ideas for the building, said Bridget Bethea, lead strategist of ULEAD, consultants in the project. Many residents from East Liberty and nearby neighborhoods participated, she said.
The majority of people surveyed are in favor of “keeping as much of the architectural integrity as possible,” Ms. Bethea said. “They love the stained glass windows, they love the architecture of the building, in general.”
A majority are also “interested in maintaining some of the graffiti” from the more recent era of the building’s disuse. “They thought that that was a very interesting kind of aesthetic and artistic part of the story,” she said.
Nobody who was surveyed wanted the building whitewashed and overhauled as something totally modern. “Not one,” said Ms. Bethea.
That didn’t surprise Joshua Castano of Partners for Sacred Places. “This is not just a building,” he said. “It’s not just square footage. It’s not just dollars per square foot. It is a place that holds a story. It holds many stories. And it is surrounded by stories, and it’s surrounded by communities. And those are all really important.”
Most people surveyed, said Ms. Bethea, wanted the building to be “something that could be a gathering place, some type of community element, and that is used for multiple things.”
Mr. Craig said the structure, like other historic sites, ultimately has to be able to pay its way; whether through a business plan or other means, it has to generate enough income to keep itself open and maintained.
ELDI will now review ways to make that happen.
“We’ve had people engaged in thinking and dreaming. Now comes the plotting and scheming,” said Kendall Pelling of ELDI. Artists, civic leaders, business entrepreneurs and others who want to pursue parts of these ideas can now come up with specific proposals “to put legs to this vision.”
He added: “That invitation is pretty open, because there are lots of different ways this building can be used, ways it can be restored. It’s not that it can only be used for one of those things.”