April 17, 2023 Historic Preservation Commission Meeting - Minutes

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CITY OF SOUTH BEND HISTORIC PRESERVATION COMMISSION and open up the floor to our other members from the community including Ms. Niezgodski who's here to give her support too." Commissioner Andrews: "Any questions from the Commissioners or comments?" Commissioner Skaggs: "I have questions about sort of who is involved here. Legally, does the parish own all the property?" Don: "It depends who you ask. The legally, I would think the diocese owns the property itself and that's why we made sure that Bishop Rhoades would give his permission for us to move forward and also to get his permission to seek the designation as an historic uhm, to placed on historic register." Commissioner Dietz: "Has the fundraising campaign started already?" Don: "No, it hasn't started" Commissioner Dietz: "What does 10 million accomplish?" Don: "10 million dollars will accomplish a great deal. It may not be enough. We have, Mr. Kil can speak to this more, his firm has started an initial assessment VI LIIC VUIJIUC. V7IIc1l WG'IC hoping, lg, VI course flIgIIJ Vv 111 cIlallyG, VJc'rc IIVpiily to seal the envelope, get the brick work, the roofing, things of that nature. I'm guessing one million, 1.5 million. We have talked with and we've retained a liturgical restoration firm out of Milwaukee, Conrad Schmidt. Their early estimates are anywhere from 5 million to 10 million dollars on the top end, and of course everything is subject to change because we don't know what we're getting into. Mr. Kil did tell me a week or two ago that he's found nothing alarming and I'm hoping that they stay with that. The thing is, if our plan is to try to get this done by the 100th year of the anniversary of the church, which is 2026. It's an ambitious deadline, but something that we can accomplish if everything falls into place. We have undergone training with Indiana landmarks. Our last session is going to be the last Saturday in April. It's been four times that we've met down there. Wonderful people, we have a representative today from Indiana Landmarks, all local people, they've just been a wonderful source with potential funding, grant application, suggestions on how to approach the community for fundraising. Fundraising within the church because, quite frankly, if we had to rely on solely on just our parishioners to raise 10 million dollars it won't happen. But the problem is if we don't do anything, that building is going to fall in on itself and what we'd like to do is to get it back where it needs to be to ensure that it's here for another 100 years and I think we're off to a very, very impressive start and there's a few things that will maybe be shaking into place within the next month or six weeks. So there will more news in that regard." Commissioner Andrews: "Thank you. Would anyone else like to share?" Shelia Niezgodski, 4942 Scenic Dr, South Bend, IN. 6th District Council Member: "I am here in support of St Adalbert's to be on the national registry. It's a wonderful church. It has been there for as long as I can remember and established in 1910. Baptisms, weddings, community centers, just so many things that have happened with this property. Being Polish myself and looking at the art that is throughout that. We did a tour with them and it would just be a shame to see that lost. You have the students from Notre Dame that come and study those arts. The stained glass is even more valuable than Tiffany glass and I cannot imagine what it would look like once it's thoroughly cleaned. And when you look at this building and think of the amount of labor of love, that went into that being built by Polish immigrants, it makes me proud of my heritage. And as was discussed earlier, we now have the Latino population is Page 14