4/29/2007

St. Matthew's, (lack of) Passion?

As I mentioned last week, St. Matthew's Church was sold for $3500 (yes, thirty-five hundred dollars) at the City's tax sale last October. Two guys from Williamsville bought the place and transferred it to an LLC. Had a short e-mail exchange with one of the guys this week. See here, here and here for additional background.

In my e-mail exchange, I advised that they take "possession" of the place, like NOW. As I noticed on March 25th - a full six months after the $3500 bid was accepted for the property - the window on the Moselle Street side of the basement was opened. Here's the video! The same window that "we" accessed on the St. Matthew's Good Friday Tour.

On Saturday we headed back to St. Matthew's to see if they had properly secured the basement window. This is what we saw...

IMG_6718[1]

While I certainly wish these guys from Williamsville the best of success with their church, really got to wonder why they've waited so long to properly secure the premises. Part of my e-mail contained this advice.
I'm assuming your attorney does not live in the immediate neighborhood. If you are sincere and desire to move forward with your project and preserve what is still a viable structure, properly securing the building is a good first step. NO one will stop you from properly boarding and securing the site. Deeds sometimes take weeks to receive after they've been recorded. Again, you may be losing valuable time.
And like we're still waiting. Housing Court this Friday. Stay tuned.
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4 comments:

aaronf said...

In your e-mail exchanges with the new "owners", did they give you any hint of their plans going forward?
On one hand, I hate to see these beautiful buildings wasting away and wonder why the right people don't take initiative, but on the other hand, now that someone has purchased the property, I'm a bit skeptical as many people have good intentions, but intentions only get you so far...
Any insight for us?

Anonymous said...

I think its an airhole for Jesus to breathe....

Mark Williams said...

Perhaps you should publish the email address of the owners of St Matthews so that we can all email our impression of their recent purchase....

fixBuffalo said...

Mark,

If the two guys who bought the church - names available on the City Sale post - don't respond to this post by lunch time tomorrow, I'll post the one guy's email address.

Bringing them into the conversation is would be beneficial...no?