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edenfallingThis post is all about real estate and the UU congregation I grew up in. Unless you are one of the maybe three people on earth who cares, feel free to ignore my babbling.
The Unitarian Church in Summit was founded in, IIRC, 1908. It has long been plagued by property woes. The original church was tiny, and is quite close to the center of town, and most crucially, has no parking lot. RE classes were held in the basement and sometimes in the parish house that shared a tiny driveway with the church proper. But the basement was not well cared for and was largely condemned. (When I was a teenager, we used to hold a haunted house down there every Halloween. It hardly needed any decoration to be incredibly creepifying.)
In the 1960s, the congregation purchased a mansion down the street as a sort of extension center; the RE program and various other functions were moved there and a dreadfully institutional 60s-style addition was tacked on to the building. But the separated properties were never ideal, and the mansion itself was not kept up well, to the point where the upper floor was condemned during my childhood and we weren't allowed to use it except during the annual garage sale. (Bad upkeep is kind of a running theme, you may notice... *sigh*)
Around 2000, the congregation finally got permission to demolish the parish house and sort of build an extension around the original church. That had been held up in zoning fights for nearly twenty years. To help fund that project, the mansion was sold to a developer who knocked it down, split the property lot, and built two new houses on the land. So after about forty years the congregation was finally back together under one roof. Yay!
...But we still had no parking lot. Not so yay.
Now, the church sits on the boundary between a commercial district and a residential district (which is why we have had perpetual zoning fights; the residents do not like the idea of people flooding their street every time there's a gathering in the church). The building right next door is a family-owned funeral home.
When the previous owner died, the congregation attempted to purchase the funeral home -- the thought was less, "Hey, an extra building!" and more, "Oh my god, a parking lot, please, please, please" -- but the family eventually decided not to sell.
Now the latest owner has died, and this time, with the property market still depressed, suddenly the congregation's offer looks a LOT BETTER. And I just heard from my parents tonight that, pending some final details and the official contract, the owner's relatives have accepted UUCS's bid to purchase the funeral home.
Yay for real!!!
And that is that. :-)
The Unitarian Church in Summit was founded in, IIRC, 1908. It has long been plagued by property woes. The original church was tiny, and is quite close to the center of town, and most crucially, has no parking lot. RE classes were held in the basement and sometimes in the parish house that shared a tiny driveway with the church proper. But the basement was not well cared for and was largely condemned. (When I was a teenager, we used to hold a haunted house down there every Halloween. It hardly needed any decoration to be incredibly creepifying.)
In the 1960s, the congregation purchased a mansion down the street as a sort of extension center; the RE program and various other functions were moved there and a dreadfully institutional 60s-style addition was tacked on to the building. But the separated properties were never ideal, and the mansion itself was not kept up well, to the point where the upper floor was condemned during my childhood and we weren't allowed to use it except during the annual garage sale. (Bad upkeep is kind of a running theme, you may notice... *sigh*)
Around 2000, the congregation finally got permission to demolish the parish house and sort of build an extension around the original church. That had been held up in zoning fights for nearly twenty years. To help fund that project, the mansion was sold to a developer who knocked it down, split the property lot, and built two new houses on the land. So after about forty years the congregation was finally back together under one roof. Yay!
...But we still had no parking lot. Not so yay.
Now, the church sits on the boundary between a commercial district and a residential district (which is why we have had perpetual zoning fights; the residents do not like the idea of people flooding their street every time there's a gathering in the church). The building right next door is a family-owned funeral home.
When the previous owner died, the congregation attempted to purchase the funeral home -- the thought was less, "Hey, an extra building!" and more, "Oh my god, a parking lot, please, please, please" -- but the family eventually decided not to sell.
Now the latest owner has died, and this time, with the property market still depressed, suddenly the congregation's offer looks a LOT BETTER. And I just heard from my parents tonight that, pending some final details and the official contract, the owner's relatives have accepted UUCS's bid to purchase the funeral home.
Yay for real!!!
And that is that. :-)
