St. Adalbert Catholic Church in Pilsen granted preliminary landmark status
CHICAGO (CBS) -- A century-old Catholic church building in Pilsen has been granted preliminary landmark status, after activists have spent years trying to preserve the building that was closed by the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago in 2019.
During a special meeting Monday afternoon, the commission voted unanimously to approve preliminary landmark status for St. Adalbert Parish, located near 17th and Ashland. It could take months until a vote comes on final landmark status for the church campus.
Preliminary landmark status for St. Adalbert includes the parish's church, rectory, convent, and school buildings. A fifth building on the campus, a one-story garage north of rectory, was excluded from the preliminary landmark designation.
The designation covers all exterior portions of the four buildings, while their interiors are excluded from the "significant features" that would be protected by landmark status. The designation protects the buildings from demolition or significant renovations.
According to the preliminary landmark status resolution, the designation would "ensure that the significant historic and architectural features of the exteriors and rooflines of the four buildings are preserved while allowing reasonable change and flexibility to meet new needs in accommodating future uses including potential new construction on undeveloped portions of the parcel."
Commission officials said the preliminary landmark designation allows for the historic elements on the exterior of St. Adalbert to be preserved, while enabling future development of the interiors.
The archdiocese has been trying to sell the shuttered church to a developer since it closed in 2019, while preservationists and former parishioners have fought to save the building from the wrecking ball, and have protested moves to relocate a beloved statue and stained glass windows.
The St. Adalbert parish was founded in 1874. At the time, its congregation was predominantly Polish, but by the time it closed in 2019, most of the congregation was of Mexican heritage. For years, the church held masses in both Polish and Spanish.
The current church and adjoining rectory were completed in 1914, and were designed by architect Henry J. Schlacks, who designed more than a dozen Catholic churches in the Chicago area.
The convent was built in 1928, and has 52 bedrooms, a library, a chapel, and a dining hall. The school was completed in 1911.
Representatives for the Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago attended Monday afternoon's meeting, but declined to comment on the push for preliminary landmark status for St. Adalbert.
Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th) who has called for landmarking St. Adalbert for years, said landmarking the church could open the door for state and city funding to help pay for repairs to the church towers and other deteriorating elements of the church campus.
Sigcho-Lopez had sought to downzone the St. Adalbert site last year in an effort to block any redevelopment plans for the church, but allies of former Mayor Lori Lightfoot blocked a final City Council vote on his ordinance.
The alderman praised Mayor Brandon Johnson "for fulfilling a commitment to work collaboratively with every institution in the city of Chicago, including the archdiocese, so that we can achieve the goals that are so important for the city in such a dire time."
"Our message is a message of unity. Our message is a message of collaboration. And our message is a message to protect and respect the heritage of every community in the city of Chicago. We ought to make sure that we follow an example so our own children can be proud," Sigcho-Lopez said. "Immigrant voices have been oftentimes ignored, but most recently dismissed and silenced for way too long."
The alderman said the church has been a vital part of the Pilsen community for generations, and he's glad the landmarks commission has voted "to remind us why this is so important for our community."
"These are communities that have been here for generations, and will continue to do so, because as you see here today, and the many people who perhaps are not here today, but that sent hundreds of emails of solidarity and support, so that we work in government together to address this issue, not to ignore it, and worse to let it decay in despair, and to lose yet another historic heritage for our community. We cannot do that," Sigcho-Lopez said.
Sigcho-Lopez said he hopes Monday's vote is a first step toward cooperation with the archdiocese to preserve St. Adalbert and other historic Catholic churches in Chicago.
"What we want is a solution that can bring us all to the table, and not divide us any longer, given the complexities and the needs that we have," he said.
The archdiocese closed the church in 2019 as part of a plan to consolidate several parishes in Pilsen, despite an anonymous gift originally estimated at $3 million, which supporters hoped would be enough to rehab the church building and keep it open. The gift turned out to be stock later valued at $1.5 million.
The towers of St. Adalbert's Church long ago fell into disrepair, and the condition of the building was cited by the Archdiocese as a factor contributing to its decision to close the church. The iconic towers have been surrounded by protective scaffolding for years.
The archdiocese has said repairs for the church would be too costly.
Last year, following months of delay and a number of protests, the La Pieta statue inside St. Adalbert was moved to nearby St. Paul's Church, which had absorbed the St. Adalbert parish after the church closed.
The archdiocese first tried to move the statue in August 2022, but the plan to do so was stalled due to issues with permits.
In November, the 6,000-pound statue, a marble replica of Michelangelo's Pieta, went from St. Adalbert to St. Paul, where crews ran into several issues of getting the statue into its new home.
The archdiocese said at the time that the statue would replace a previous statue inside St. Paul's Catholic Church.
Last week, the archdiocese began removing St. Adalbert's stained glass windows, prompting the Commission on Chicago Landmarks to move forward with a vote on preliminary landmark status for the church.
City officials said during the meeting that preliminary landmark status for the church will mean the archdiocese must obtain permits to remove or board up windows at St. Adalbert, or for other work that did not previously require a permit.
Preliminary landmark status is the first step in a lengthy process toward full landmark status. The commission now will seek a report from the Department of Planning and Development on how landmark designation would affect neighborhood plans and policies.
The commission also will formally contact the archdiocese to request consent for landmark status, although the church's consent is not required. If the archdiocese opposes landmark status, a public hearing would be required to discuss the matter to assist the commission in deciding whether to move forward.
After a final review of all those matters, the commission would vote on whether to recommend landmark status to the Chicago City Council.
If the recommendation is approved, it would be referred to the council's Zoning Committee before a full City Council vote.
