A downtown Pittsburgh congregation that used part of its building as a homeless shelter is searching for ways to stay in the century-old structure as it faces looming repair costs in the millions.
Smithfield United Church of Christ was awarded a grant of $75,000 in 2024 from the Buhl Foundation for emergency stabilization of the steeple, but the congregation is grappling with years of deferred repairs due to a limited budget.
Estimates have placed the cost of repairs and renovations, at the minimum, at $10 million.
The church previously used part of the building for a longstanding shelter for those experiencing homelessness, but the county closed it last year, leaving many spaces empty.
One hope for preservation is that the empty space will attract interested parties to take over management of the Gothic-style building and allow the congregation to keep some space to continue to worship in it.
“It's something that we have started digging into, because we have no choice,” said John Axtell, co-chair of the church’s building reuse committee. “Because if we don't come up with this, then the future is pretty bleak. If the congregation is able to rebuild and add new members, that's great, but we clearly do not have the bandwidth to take care of a project of this scale.”
“So, if it's going to be preserved, someone with that capacity has to step in,” he added.
That preservation comes with a lot of questions: how should the many unused spaces in the church be used? Who will use it? Who will own and manage the building? Where will the money for repairs come from?
These questions are what the congregation must answer, Axtell said.
The deteriorating condition is no secret.
Around the time of a fire in the social hall in 2007, the church’s exterior was evaluated, revealing that the concrete exterior had begun to degrade. Now, protective netting wraps around the building to prevent pieces of the walls from falling, masking some of the extravagant design.
The building is the fifth the congregation has had since forming in 1782.
Remaining in the building is a significant challenge for a shrinking congregation. Aging worshippers and the COVID-19 pandemic took the congregation’s numbers down from more than 100 in the pews to around two dozen.
On Dec. 15, just shy of 20 worshippers gathered in the large sanctuary for Sunday service. Liddy Barlow, a congregation member and formerly the minister of Christian education, said the building is in stark contrast with the plain, white meeting houses where she grew up in New England.
“I think that beauty is one of God's gifts to us, and I think that worshipping in a beautiful space kind of brings to mind the beauties of creation and the beauties of the divine,” Barlow said.
The grand space is decorated with approximately 30-foot stained glass panels depicting significant moments in biblical history, such as the birth of Jesus Christ, but also crucial moments within the congregation’s storied history.
The congregation’s senior minister, the Rev. Shannon Garrett-Doege, often meets people who, upon finding out she’s the pastor, share stories of personal or familial connection to the church.
“The building is just so beloved and has such a deep, rich history,” she said. “Everyone has a Smithfield story. So, it's a big part of not only the worshipping community, but the community at large.”
It’s a building widely praised for its acoustics, sometimes called the finest in Pittsburgh, according to Jon Colburn, the congregation’s president. It’s designed so that worshippers can clearly hear the voice of the congregation members singing next to them in the sanctuary.
In the quiet moments of service, it carries a sneeze or a cough through rows of empty pews.
The sanctuary can hold up to 450 people, making it prime for musical performances, but it is difficult to arrange performances with groups in the city because the building is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The bathrooms and 1925 elevator are too small for wheelchair users to turn around in.
The building’s architect, Henry Hornbostel, renowned for his work in Pittsburgh and beyond, managed to squeeze a significant number of rooms and narrow stairs and hallways into the seemingly small church. Within the building are several offices, a gym that Urban Pathways Charter School pays to hold classes in several times a week, and oft-unused Sunday school rooms.
Spaces once used for the shelter are now empty. What used to be clinic space is now barren with the except for tape on the ground used to mark the length needed for social distancing, and a calendar still displaying October 2023.
Only some parts of the building have proper safety measures such as up-to-date fire alarm pull stations and sprinklers, another costly challenge the congregation faces. In 2020, sprinklers and alarms were installed in those parts of the building for the County’s rented shelter, but its closure shrunk the church’s small budget even more.
Currently, the church has a budget of around $400,000 annually, with about half coming from the 1787 Penn family land lease that gave the congregation a stretch of land, including the space the church currently exists on.
It’s far short of the estimated $10 million needed to repair and maintain the building and make it ADA-compliant, a figure that has likely increased by several million since the assessment around the time of the 2007 fire, said Colburn, who has done many building repairs and renovations himself.
But it’s not a figure he faces without optimism.
“I would like to see a vibrant community of worshippers back in this space. I don't know that we'll ever be at 450 again, but a working congregation who's still doing what we are called to do in downtown Pittsburgh, and for the first time in the time I've been here in the nearly 20 years, it actually feels like it could happen,” Colburn said. “I'm more optimistic than I've ever been.”
“We have no choice except to be optimistic,” Axtell added.
Abigail Hakas is a reporter at Next Generation Newsroom, part of the Center for Media Innovation at Point Park University. She is a graduate of Chatham University. Reach her at abigail.hakas@pointpark.edu. NGN is a regional news service that focuses on government and enterprise reporting in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Kalliyan Winder is an intern for Next Generation Newsroom. Kalliyan is a third-year student at Point Park University. Reach her at krwinde@pointpark.edu.
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