A tidal wave of in-rem properties is heading to auction next week, including several religious facilities. While owners can still save their property from the auction block by paying their arrears, the latest listing on the City’s website shows 4,668 properties up for sale. Staggering. There are so many that the City is spreading the auction over three days, Monday thru Wednesday, at the Convention Center.
In-Rem properties being offered through the City were foreclosed on due to delinquent taxes, user fees and/or water bills. The auction list includes 1,530 vacant lots, 1,157 single-family homes, 1,427 two-family homes, 284 commercial buildings, and eight religious facilities. David Torke at Fix Buffalo has been profiling the oncoming onslaught, focusing on a few of the churches facing an uncertain future.
St. Matthew’s Church at 1066 East Ferry Street (entry image and photos above, below) was previously auctioned in 2006. It is back for an encore. David has the sad details:
St. Matthew’s first opened in 1928. For seventy years – with the adjacent school, convent and priest’s residence – St. Matthew’s served an a parish that declined by the decade. In 1998 the local Diocese split the property and sold the church building for $22,000 to a congregation that abandoned the premises six years later. As that congregation became delinquent with water bills and user fees, the City sold St. Matthew’s for the staggering sum of $3500 (yes – three thousand five hundred!) in 2006. While the current owners attempted to sell the church on eBay a number of times during the past two years, deals collapsed.
And another, this one the former Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church on Emslie Street:
The local Diocese sold this space in 1977 to a Ukrainian congregation. They reportedly struggled with the complex after a neighborhood propane explosion in 1983 blew out the stained glass windows. The current owners, according to neighbors, abandoned the church in 2007 and are currently mired in what appears to be an eight year long housing court case, according to city records.
On Jefferson Avenue north of William Street, a former synagogue is on the list:
Located at 407 Jefferson Avenue and once the city’s largest synagogue, the building was last occupied by Greater New Hope Church.
In-rem activity is not uniformly distributed throughout the city, a clear majority of the properties are located on the east side. Many are marginal buildings that are uninhabitable, will likely not sell, will end up on the demolition list, and the cycle of abandonment continues. Others, such as heritage structures, deserve a better fate. When we lose one, we lose a part of us.
All photos by David Torke.