Furness-designed church in West Philly about to be demolished

According to the Department of Licenses and Inspections, a vacant church at 47th and Kingsessing will be torn down on Monday due to "imminently dangerous conditions."

The church in question, originally known as the Episcopal Church of the Atonement and more recently as St. Peter's Church of Christ, was designed by renowned Philadelphia architect Frank Furness, but is not historically certified.

The demolition order comes after "months" of L&I citations and court orders to stabilize the church's decaying tower and stonework, according to Scott Mulderig, director of L&I's Emergency Services Unit. Although the church itself is vacant, its pastor and congregants still meet in an adjacent structure, but had failed to respond to either L&I or a judge's order.

"There was a court order to put a fence around the property, but they failed to do so," said Mulderig, who said a judge issued a final order last Tuesday to repair or demolish the building.

He added that the judge and L&I had recommended in the past that the church explore redevelopment options for the site, and that there had been at least one "interested entity." 

"We've been trying to get them to come up with a plan for last six months," said Mulderig. "But nobody came up with any ideas for it, and funding was certainly an issue for the church."

The church pastor was able reach an agreement with Sprint to lease the church tower as a platform for cellular network antennas, but the telecommunications giant stopped payments after the building was cited for unsafe conditions. Mulderig indicated that the antennas were nonetheless still active and that Sprint intended to recover its equipment prior to next week's demolition.

Indeed, as of this afternoon, contractors were visible removing the telecom equipment from the tower, which had since been fenced off by L&I.

Pastor Clyde Brown watched the workers from the lawn in front of the parish hall, next door. He contradicted L&I's summary of the situation, saying he believed that the city had negotiated with a buyer to stop the demolition of the church.

"The city scheduled it to be torn down and we didn't have the money to fix it," said Brown, who cited declining congregants as limiting the churches ability to repair the crumbling structure. "Some guy came by and he bought it, but I can't tell you who he was."

Brown said he didn't know how much money the building had been sold for. City deed records do not indicate that a sale has occurred.

According to L&I, demolition plans are still in place. Due to the size of the building, costs are expected to reach into the "hundreds of thousands of dollars", according to Mulderig.

"It eats up a lot of our budget," he said. "I'd rather take down 50 rowhomes than one church."