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Renaiconna t1_ixx12dg wrote

Reply to comment by Rubysdad1975 in Five houses targeted for demolition in Mount Vernon historic district by Rubysdad1975

Given the expense of all the work it would take to make the buildings actually livable/leasable, there are no buyers willing to take the properties in the state they are in. Believe me when I say they would prefer to sell - they’ve been trying to repair and maintain for nearly three decades, but they can’t afford it much longer, it’s a literal fire hazard, and nobody is buying. Nobody. You may think 100k isn’t a lot for a church, but they aren’t Catholics - each parish must fund itself and be self-sustaining. Every dollar going into those properties is a dollar less for the homeless shelters, soup kitchens, furniture sales/donations, hosting community programs like AA, etc. that the church would prefer to put back into the community.

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Salty_Sun_6108 t1_ixz5ek3 wrote

If the price is right, there are buyers. But if they don’t even try to sell…

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[deleted] t1_ixz6vvx wrote

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bmore t1_iy1lpk1 wrote

They haven't listed the properties, so it's really impossible to say if there are any buyers.

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[deleted] t1_iy383xq wrote

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bmore t1_iy4h7iq wrote

>big developer, or some luxury apartment builder which we actually don’t want either

Who is we? I 100% would want luxury apartments or a big developer building in Mount Vernon instead of demolition and a prayer garden or surface lot. Are you kidding me with this?

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Salty_Sun_6108 t1_iyas9zb wrote

You are so full of it. I can hook them up with an agent who will sell it very fast. Sounds like the church is greedy AF, but that is what you expect from churches who don't pay taxes.

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Salty_Sun_6108 t1_iyar4dg wrote

Prayer is stupid. It doesn't do a damn thing. Nibbles? Yea, right. They didn't put it for sale. Sell it.

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CaptainObvious110 t1_iy249i1 wrote

Why did they accept those buildings in the first place then?

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Renaiconna t1_iy3797g wrote

It was a donation from a parishioner, along with the second parking lot across from MedChi. There were initially hopes to be able to use the buildings for something, but the money wasn’t there and really hasn’t been there to be able to do anything substantial with them.

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CaptainObvious110 t1_iy5awf4 wrote

The parishioner evidently had deep pockets then. Otherwise how do you explain having five houses? This then raises the question of what condition the houses were when they were acquired by the church?

If they were livable at the time, then why wasn't that pursued at a time when it would have been much easier to keep them afloat rather than they sit for decades and fall apart?

30 years is a really really long time to sit on properties and to be very frank, that shouldn't be allowed in the first place.

I'm assuming that Mt Vernon wasn't a slum 30 years ago so I have a hard time making sense of such valuable real estate just sitting there without any real buyers.

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