St. Mary's on the Hill (Pt. 2)

West Coast Perspective wrote an article about St. Mary's on the Hill today on Buffalo Rising and used a few pictures that I took last fall :) Here's another one that I used on a Wordless Wednesday prior to writing about it last December:


Apparently Sam Savarino wants to buy it and has some beautiful plans drawn up. The owner seems to be playing games though. Read the article for more.

Anyway, about the property at 783 Niagara Street: a few fast facts, first from the Erie County Real Property information site:

Owner	ST MARYS CHURCH	Book-Page/Date	1277-367 * 6/30/1914 *
Owner	PROTESTANT EPISCOPAL DIOC	Book-Page/Date	10885-1510 * 4/19/1995 *
Owner	WEISBERG JEFFREY M	Book-Page/Date	10885-1516 * 4/19/1995 *
Owner	ABUNDANT LIFE SCRIPTURE	Book-Page/Date	11023-1203 * 12/17/2002 *
Owner	CITY OF BUFFALO REF	Book-Page/Date	R 39-S0283 * 9/15/2005 *
Owner	MYRIE-OYEWO JULIA J	Book-Page/Date	11110-4036 * 3/7/2006 *

I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that Weisburg stripped the building, because that's what he does did...legally too, because he owned it (along with the Architectural Circus a block up on Niagara).

Parcel Status	ACTIVE	City\Town	Buffalo	Village
S-B-L	99.66-3-24	Owner	MYRIE-OYEWO JULIA J
Property Location	783 NIAGARA	Mailing Address
Property Class	620 RELIGIOUS	Line 2
Assessment	135000	Line 3
Taxable	135000	Street	1039 E 227 ST
Desc	N COR VERMONT	City/State	BRONX NY
Desc	W/PCS 18 X 40 & 114 X 42	Zip	10466
Deed Book	11110	Deed Page	4036
Frontage	92.5	Depth	150

Then there's the Sale info from the City of Buffalo website:

Deed Date:	Deed Book:	Deed Page:	Deed Type:	Valid Sale:
03/07/2006 - 00:00 AM	11110	4036	T- Tax Sale	0
Sale Price:	Sales Condition:	Parcel No.:
$17,000	0 -	1

A couple of things jump out here - that it's still listed as a religious building and that it's still assessed at $135,000 (!) despite the current owner buying at a City foreclosure sale in 2005 (deed filed in '06) for much less. It only took them a month to raise the assessment to $75,000 at the Extreme Makeover house a few blocks over at 228 Massachusetts. Meanwhile, the partial demo of the church had to set the owner back a bundle, assuming she paid the bill.

It's easy to go on about saving what's left and loving what Savarino wants to do with it, but that may only encourage the greed of the owner. Tough one. Maybe she should get out while the getting is good and leave a drop of hope in the neighborhood.

Maybe Housing Court could help the process along rather than continue with endless adjournments. Then again, maybe someone is thinking of buying and reselling to another buddy to convince investors how astute they are. It's been done before, and it's called fraud. Maybe better to sell to Savarino :)