AS CHURCH MEMBERSHIPS DECLINE, AREA DEVELOPERS ARE TRANSFORMING THE STRUCTURES INTO UNIQUE HOUSING
An increasingly popular concept that turns cathedrals into residences is much more modern than anything you’d encounter.
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
NOVEMBER 2, 2025
John Bateman
If a Chicagoan ever considered living in a church, it might evoke images of bell towers, or living in a cathedral like Quasimodo did in “The Hunchback of Notre Dame.” But an increasingly popular concept that turns cathedrals into residences is much more modern than anything you’d encounter in 15th century Paris.
One such example is the recent conversion by Chicago developer ZSD of St. Boniface Catholic Church, a circa 1900s structure, into housing for the West Town neighborhood. In a three-phase redevelopment, completed in June, the developer built out a total of 42 units at St. Boniface, with eight qualifying as affordable housing.
And as many religious institutions face declining attendance — which makes maintaining properties unsustainable — converting the historical buildings into housing has become an attractive option.
Churches offer a uniqueness “that comes out of transforming something that was never meant for someone to live in,” said Jay Keller, a principal architect with SPACE Architects + Planners who worked on the St. Boniface development. “People want to live there because you can’t find that in a brand new structure.”
Keller’s firm has been involved in several church-to-residence conversions, including Everman Lofts in Wicker Park, The Synagogue in Uptown and Talman Lofts in Logan Square.
At St. Boniface, the first phase focused on transforming the church into 18 housing units, the second phase added eight units in an adjacent building, and a third phase added 17 additional condos in a new structure next door.
For some of the buyers at St. Boniface, “these were very emotional purchases,” said Cory Robertson, principal at Corwin Partners, who advised ZSD on marketing and sales. “Some people don’t (care) if you tell them that the living room was the choir loft.”
For others, “it was a hook,” Robertson said. “People wanted something with architectural interest, but also a back story.”
St. Boniface resident Gary Weber wanted that story when he bought a penthouse unit that includes two towers, a large rose window and 38-foot ceilings. “I was attracted to the architecture and the possibility of a fun, funky space,” Weber said.
The number of Chicago-area churches converted to residences is difficult to quantify, said Ward Miller, executive director of Preservation Chicago, as developers continue to transform cathedrals, temples and other religious buildings.
With more than 30 church properties listed for sale by the Archdiocese of Chicago alone, more conversions to housing are likely.
The supply of Chicago churches for sale also reflects shifting demographics and dynamics.
According to Eric Wollan, chief capital assets officer for the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Catholic Church in recent years started consolidating parishes under its Renew My Church initiative to reflect changes in congregations, or “areas that were heavily Catholic decades ago that no longer are.”
Changes in membership aren’t unique to the Catholic Church.
According to the PEW Research Center, the percentage of Chicagoans who don’t identify with a particular religion has increased from 22% to 34% since 2014, along with a corresponding decrease among Catholic and Protestant denominations.
Meanwhile, facility costs continue to climb as developers, architects and church officials feel the impact of property ownership. “A cathedral doesn’t make sense for 50 people,” Robertson said.
Church ownership “has become less and less financially achievable,” according to Keller.
And Wollan sees the effect on a church’s mission. Spending money on a building “is money that’s taken away from ministry somewhere else,” he said.
MORE THAN SUPPLY AND DEMAND
The appeal of these conversions belies the significant challenges posed by building codes and design, and stirs up sentiment as community members lose access to the institutions that served them.
“Chicago’s an older city,” Keller said.” A lot of these churches, they’re built into the community fabric. These churches were built into the neighborhoods.”
Keller, however, loves the design puzzle.
“Churches don’t have enough windows for residential use,” he said. “We have to figure out how to carve in new windows in a way that keeps the exterior character of the church intact but allows for modern day living and meets code.”
Shape is a significant factor. “Usually, I’m handed a rectangular parcel with rectangular setbacks for a rectangular building with rectangular units, with rectangular rooms,” Robertson said.
But with octagons, the windows and the four towers of St. Boniface, “we had to embrace the quirk,” Robertson said.
When buying his unit, Weber saw opportunity. “I thought the possibilities were incredible to what the space could encompass, being a duplex with the two towers,” he said.
Keller said problem solving often happens during construction, “because we can’t see behind walls and plaster.”
Some buildings, such as schools, are easier to repurpose than others, Miller said, because rooms are large enough and the cost of conversion is lower.
Although Catholic church properties are held in trust by the archdiocese for the benefit of specific parishes, each parish decides whether to sell or lease a particular property, with support from Wollan’s team.
Once a decision is made to sell, if it involves a sacred space such as a sanctuary, the property goes through a relegation process that Wollan said removes the sacredness of the space, or “deconsecrates” the building so it can be used for other purposes.
Similarly, “United Methodist church buildings are held in trust for the annual conference,” said the Rev. Victoria Rebeck, director of communications for the Northern Illinois Conference of the United Methodist Church. So, when a church closes, “the building reverts to the ownership of the annual conference (which) determines what it wants to do with the property.”
Like the Archdiocese of Chicago, Rebeck said, the Northern Illinois Conference also has a deconsecration process once a property is sold.
Some potential conversions, like that of St. Boniface, remain in limbo for years, caught in the middle of failed proposals, potential demolition and conflicts with members of the community.
Zoning isn’t always a challenge for conversions, although landmark status can pose complications. Due to their location within or next to residential areas, most church buildings are already zoned for residential use, Miller said.
Landmark status impacts what can happen to church structures. The status helps protect historic buildings from demolition or significant alterations to the historic nature of the structure.
A 1987 Chicago ordinance requires the consent of the owner before a religious property can be designated a landmark. Because of this ordinance, Miller said, Chicago has lost the ability to preserve the historic architecture of churches that don’t want landmark designation.
Conversions can necessitate the sale of the residences before work is finished.
“Presales are an absolute requirement,” said Robertson, who estimates that about 10% of buyers will buy “from paper,” meaning they can’t view the property before purchasing it. For safety reasons, most buyers couldn’t be shown the inside of St. Boniface during its renovation.
Weber and other homeowners who buy into a project like St. Boniface, “want something different” from their friends, Robertson said. “We sold everything from the outside of this building,“ he said.
The conversion of a church property impacts the community financially and emotionally.
Churches often provide “a legacy of services, including literacy services, counseling and many memories that build community,” said Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez, who represents Chicago’s 25th Ward.
Activism by church leaders can embed a church within the community, making it more than just a place of worship. It creates “a lot of solidarity with faith leaders and organizing labor leaders, working people and immigrant residents,” Sigcho-Lopez said.
Because the properties are tax-exempt, Lopez sees community input as even more imperative, particularly “in terms of the repurposing and the reimagination of these spaces,” he said.
“There’s a certain tragedy and loss that comes with these closings,” Miller said. “Sometimes (churches) are the last human services available in close proximity to people that need them the most.”
GENTRIFICATION
Such developments also increase property values and taxes, creating a risk of neighborhood gentrification.
For larger projects such as St. Boniface, developers “are breaking new ceilings on pricing,” Robertson said. This raises market prices and pushes up property values and corresponding property taxes much faster than the natural increase in value from existing housing.
This also creates “changing costs to people at the lower end of the market,” Robertson said. This is why he said “there needs to be an affordable component” to conversion projects.
Miller said communities build and anchor churches similar to the way they build public schools. Conversions “should always serve the community, and it gets a little tricky sometimes,” he said. “Should they (become) community centers? Residential buildings? Event centers? Music halls? Another religious organization?”
For some projects, Chicago requires a percentage of affordable housing units, Robertson said. “It’s always a fight between the alderman and zoning and a developer as to how much affordable (housing) is going to be built,” Robertson said.
Still, “there’s no way to take care of everybody that would be displaced by the inevitable creep of cost,” he said. “It’s not enough. It never will be.”
In January, Humboldt United Methodist Church sold its 1928 building to LUCHA, an affordable housing advocate and developer. The church already had 12 apartments that had been used to house new German immigrants and now served as affordable housing for primarily Latino and Hispanic families.
Selling to an affordable housing developer “was non-negotiable,” said the Rev. Paula Cripps-Vallejo, lead pastor of Humboldt UMC. “We’d been doing affordable housing for 100 years.”
The church, which wasn’t closing, needed to decide whether to relocate or spend $10 million to $12 million to refurbish the century-old structure.
The sale raised fundamental questions about the church’s legacy.
“We are a Hispanic church, already marginalized and struggling, but we’re not willing to give up our values,” she said. “How do our buildings, even when we aren’t the owners, glorify the Jesus we know, who always welcomes the marginalized?”
Ultimately, Humboldt Park UMC sold its property for more than the price offered by for-profit developers, one of which had offered to let existing tenants “stay rent free for six months,” said Cripps-Vallejo.
The 25th Ward — which includes Pilsen, Little Village, University Village, Marshall Square and Heart of Italy — faces a huge need for community spaces for youth and family services, “especially in light of cuts at the federal level,” said Sigcho-Lopez, who advocates for community input even on affordable housing decisions.
During the early days of the pandemic, he saw a rise in adverse community response to developments. “There’s a huge need for social services, (and) privatizing spaces in a time of need wasn’t welcomed by constituents and parishioners,” he said.
Bank lending practices can also curb the development of affordable housing. When most banks require 20% gross profit in order to lend to a developer, “how do you do that in an increasing-construction-cost marketplace,” said Robertson. He cited a 45% increase in the cost of new construction in the past three years.
Although the archdiocese does not participate in the redevelopment of sold properties, it does consider the proposed reuse of the building when deciding whether to sell.
“We want the buildings to be put to good productive use,” Wollan said. “We’re sensitive to what the community wants, and what’s consistent with the surrounding neighborhood.”
Wollan added that the archdiocese is currently in negotiations over two properties that would be strictly affordable housing.
“Adaptive reuse creates opportunity,” said Robertson, who remains optimistic about the possibility for church conversions to include more affordable housing and hopes that adaptive reuse will “become a much bigger component of the affordable (housing) decisions made by the city.”
Meanwhile, LUCHA’s renovations on the Humboldt Park UMC property are underway.
“The church building didn’t just become affordable housing; we were already doing it,” Cripps-Vallejo said.