The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation is awarding this year's “Cities Challenge” grant in the city of Gary -- for more than 163-thousand dollars -- to a project that will transform a historic, abandoned Gothic-style church into a beautiful ruins garden and event space.
The City Methodist Church in downtown Gary has been abandoned since 1975 and has been in slow decay ever since. But it's also been a spot for photographers as well as movie producers to use in settings in their films. The project manager is Assistant Director for Planning Sarah Kobetis. She says this project is not what typically happens in urban neighborhoods....
“A lot of times, when it comes to historic blight, you can demolish the building or totally rehab it. This is kind of a new approach. It’s not a full rehab to its original structure, it’s more of kinda working with what’s it’s become. That’s the interesting part of it. You’re honoring the legacy – history of the church, but also the decay and the role that it’s played in the city in the past couple years.”
A very extensive structural study will be first conducted at City Methodist Church before any actual work begins. The grant calls for the ruins garden and event space to be ready for use by June 2018.
The Knight Foundation's Cities Challenge grant program encourages the 26 cities where Knight invests to create more vibrant places for its residents to live and to work. Gary is one of those communities, because the Knights once owned and published the "Post-Tribune."
The full conversation with Kobetis and her boss, Director of Redevelopment and Planning Joe Van Dyk, about this project can be heard Monday on "Regionally Speaking" on Lakeshore Public Radio.
