Searching for ways to turn spiritual havens into economic opportunity, a Johnstown group has hired a Philadelphia consultant to survey three historic churches for possible re-use.
Save Our Steeples, a local preservation effort, aims to protect three century-old Catholic churches in the Cambria City neighborhood, which has received designation as a national historic district. After local fundraising the group has signed a contract with the Partnership for Sacred Places, a Philly non-profit that consults with church groups nationwide. The Greater Johnstown Regional Partnership donated $10,000 to the effort.
Cambria City is attempting to attract new arts activity after the establishment of The Bottleworks, an ethnic art center.Richard Burkett, president of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, says that the Partnership will assemble a team of architects and connect Save Our Steeples to a national database on reuse ideas that have been tried elsewhere.
Its an exercise not only in architecture, but in community involvement, he says of the six-month project on the churches of St. Columba, St. Casimir & Emerich, and Immaculate Conception. The churches and two others were merged into a single parish last year by the Altoona-Johnstown Roman Catholic Diocese.
Tuomi Joshua Forrest of the Partnership for Scared Places, says the three churches pose an unusual site for development. Whats challenging is a cluster of properties that are important architecturally but in close proximity. Adaptive uses (shouldnt be) competing, but complementary.
Sources: Richard Burkett, JAHA; Tuomi Forrest, Partnership for Sacred Places
Writer: Chris O’Toole