Federal grant could help clean up ruins of church
Funding for removal of asbestos, water sought by city of Gary
The city of Gary revealed a projected timeline for the decontamination of the United Methodist Church during a virtual community meeting on Thursday.
The funding source for the cleanup will be determined in the coming months as the city applies for a $400,000 Brownfields Cleanup grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Grants are typically awarded in the spring, according to Gary Sustainability and Environmental Affairs Director Brenda Scott Henry. Cleanup of the site entails dewatering the lower levels of the church, located at 577 Washington St., which has been filled with rain and runoff from years of exposure to the elements.
Removal of asbestos-containing material and the partial demolition of “water-impacted ruins” are among the scope of work.
“In terms of cleanup work… what we want (to do with) the grant is remove or abate the asbestos and remove the water,” Karla McDonald, a director at Metrics Environmental, an environmental consulting firm, said. “We also have to set up a mechanism or a manner that we can keep the water from coming back into the basement.
Should the city be awarded the grant, officials expect the bidding process for the work to start in July 2023 and begin work in December 2023.
“We should be completed definitely by March 2024,” Henry said.
Built in 1926, the City United Methodist Church is a nine-story English Gothic cathedral that has come to symbolize the evolution of America’s largest steel manufacturing city.
“This church embodies the rise and fall of Gary,” Nicole Poletika of the Indiana Historical Bureau told the Post-Tribune in 2019. “Segregation eventually led to its closure.”
The cathedral took 21 months and $800,000 to complete, U.S. Steel funded almost half the project, contributing $385,000, the first service was held on Oct. 3 1926.
One year after completion the church had established a congregation of 1,700. At its height in the 1950s, the church’s membership had grown to 3,000.
The decline of Gary’s industry and population during the 1960s and 1970s took its toll on the church; by 1973 the congregation had shrunk to 320, filling less than one third of its capacity.
Then, on Oct. 5, 1975, two days after the 49th anniversary of the church’s first sermon, the church closed its doors for good. The church’s interior was destroyed by arson in 1997, and a part of the roof collapsed in 2011.
This is not the first time the city has requested money from the Environmental
Protection Agency to remove contaminants from the church. In 2019, the Northwest Indiana Regional Development Authority oversaw the $100,000 removal of asbestos from the church site. The money was from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through the Northwest Indiana Brownfields Coalition.
“It’s not as tough of a site as it could potentially be, it has its own issues to work through, but is definitely something that can be tackled and addressed,” McDonald said.