TOLEDO, Ohio — After a major campaign to save St. Anthony Church in central Toledo back in 2018, the church is still empty. Now, the Lucas County Land Bank and members of the community are pushing to get more funding for the building.
The land bank asked Toledo City Council on Wednesday for over $900,000 to help renew and reopen the church on Nebraska Avenue.
"The best path for the building is to redevelop it as a multi-purpose recreational and assembly space," said David Mann, president and CEO of the land Bank.
The church has been around for 142 years but was considered closed in 2005 due to low membership. After avoiding demolition in 2018, the land Bank, which owns the land, wanted to turn it into a recreation center to keep it intact and serve the community.
The executive director of the Padua Center, a religious community center next door, hopes it will happen, too.
"We at the Padua Center kind of hope that it will be available for our kids to use for recreation. Certainly, the restrooms which we desperately need, " said Sister Virginia Welsh.
With the recent closures of other churches like Sacred Heart Catholic Church, the land bank and the Padua Center want to ensure buildings as old as St. Anthony's stay standing and continue to be staples in the community.
"There are some other beautiful churches that are sitting empty and I think it is a concern to the city to look at these and see how they can be reused," Welsh said.
St. Anthony Church holds a lot of history, which the community doesn't want to see torn down.
"We want to show the value of these beautiful buildings that will never ever be built again," Welsh said. "No one will ever build a church like this."
Mann says the land bank will attend city council's meeting on Wednesday to explain more of its plans for the church.