Three former Louisville churches up for auction
LOUISVILLE, KY (WAVE) - This is a unique opportunity for the right buyer: Three former Catholic churches and schools went up on the auction block Wednesday. It's part of the church consolidation.
Seven years ago, five parishes in Southwest Louisville merged to form St. Peter the Apostle. The three churches that were up for auction have outlived their usefulness to the new parish and now could get some new life.
"It's been here since 1960," said Karen Chesser.
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For her, the history of Our Lady of Consolation is about more than dates and numbers. From kindergarten to 6th grade, she walked across the street to go to school.
"My mom had to pick two days a month for each child to work in the cafeteria," she said. "That's how she paid for us to go."
On Sundays, the whole family would go to church.
"My mom played the organ at church for years and years. They gave her a key and she could come over here and practice whenever she wanted to get away, 'cause she had six kids."
But time was not kind to the Catholic churches in this part of Southwest Louisville. Declining attendance led to five parishes merging in 2008. Our Lady of Consolation, along with Our Lady Help of Christians and St. Timothy churches and school buildings are no longer being used.
"It's been up for sale for a while, but I think they were asking for like two million and then went down to a million and a half," Chesser said.
Now the minimum auction bid is much lower: A half million for Our Lady of Consolation, $250,000 for the other two properties. The merged parish will keep the proceeds.
"I grew up here so it's sad to see something you grew up with and not know what it's going to become," Chesser said.
She is rooting for another church to go in, or senior apartments. Her mother, who still lives nearby, just wants something that keeps her neighborhood feeling like home.
"It could change the whole makeup of the neighborhood," she said.
All three properties are zoned R-4, which according to Louisville Metro is single family residential. The father of one potential bidder said if they were to win the auction, they wanted to convert it to apartments.
Our Lady of Consolation is also the subject of a lawsuit, filed this week by the Archdiocese against two men accused of stealing $300,000 worth of metal and other items from the vacant church.
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