HOLYOKE — Protecting a disused Catholic church from the wrecking ball for at least a year, Holyoke officials ordered a demolition delay at its Maple Street site in the city this past November.

The city hoped the delay at Our Lady of Guadalupe/Sacred Heart would prompt the local Catholic diocese to sell it to a developer for adaptive reuse, always the goal in a city rich in architecture but cash-shy in investment.

But it’s February. City officials and residents hear only rumors, namely that the Springfield diocese is showing the church to prospective buyers.

That, and the ticking of a metaphorical clock.

This kind of waiting game is playing out in Berkshire, Hampden and Hampshire counties, as surplus properties sit waiting for new uses.

The Catholic Church is the largest non-government property owner on Earth. But with society and populations changing, many of its properties are shuttered, especially in the Northeast and Midwest of the United States, according to the Church Properties Initiative at the University of Notre Dame’s Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate.

Today, graduate students within the institute are helping to add illumination to the nationwide problem of darkened and shuttered Catholic churches, coming up with a comprehensive analysis of how much land and how many unused buildings are available across the country. Their goal: to transform liabilities into assets via adaptive reuse.

“I often liken it to industrial infrastructure in post-industrial cities,” said Maddy Johnson, the initiative’s program manager.

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For Aaron Vega, Holyoke’s planning and economic development director, having the Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield as a property owner in the city is like having a silent partner — really, really silent.

“They don’t communicate with us,” said Vega. “That’s the frustrating part.”

An additional problem is that, for Catholic church buildings, there’s a tradition of demolition, he noted, instead of rehab and recycling.

“I guess the challenge is, it seems historically the diocese isn’t interested in selling and reusing these properties,” Vega said.

Holyokers remember that the city had to fight for years to get the diocese to sell the former Holyoke Catholic High School, boarded up for 13 years before a developer could get in to convert it to the Chestnut Park Apartments.

And bitterness remains over Mater Dolorosa Church, which the city and others tried to save, but the diocese had demolished in 2018, leaving only a vacant lot, reportedly for parking.

“I can’t believe they haven’t been able to sell that lot,” Vega said. “With all the housing proposals out there.”

If anyone else had real estate to sell in Holyoke, he said, “we’d be the first person they’d call.”

Johnson spoke with The Republican by phone from South Bend, Indiana, a city once known for Studebaker cars much in the same way that Holyoke once was known for paper and Pittsfield for General Electric.

“For many related reasons, the infrastructure of religion is in a similar transition in many of the same places,” she said.

Johnson’s team of graduate students is studying most of the dioceses in the country to come up with a number and dollar value of the available properties — and a comprehensive plan of what to do with them.

“I have not seen a diocese that has totally cracked the nut on the strategic planning on the real estate angle,” Johnson said.

A week ago, the Springfield Diocese and the city of Westfield announced a deal to sell the former Blessed Sacrament rectory at 6 Union Ave., so the city can build a new police station there. The deal came after months of negotiations, and even had been declared dead, before donors closed the gap between the church’s $950,000 asking price and the city’s bid of $758,083.

In Northampton, the diocese has a deal to sell the former St. Mary of the Assumption Church to an Amherst developer. That sale is tied up: The city wants plans to remove stained-glass windows to go through its historical review process, and the diocese also has sued in federal court, saying its First Amendment rights give it control of the windows, which depict the life of Jesus Christ.

That case continues with a hearing Monday in U.S. District Court in Springfield.

In November, the city of West Springfield planned to use eminent domain to take a diocese property near a convent on Brush Hill Avenue for its public works garage project. But the city changed course in face of opposition and now has a commission studying the city’s property needs.

A website maintained by Springfield’s Colebrook Realty Services, the real estate broker for the diocese, lists 10 Catholic properties for sale in western Massachusetts.

That’s up from seven as recently as June. The list includes a church in West Warren that’s in the Worcester discese, not Springfield’s.

Diocese spokeswoman Carolee McGrath said in an email that there are 11 properties for sale, but she declined to discuss individual sites.

“The list of properties available varies from time to time, based on diocesan plans and decisions, as well as, occasionally, gifts of property to parishes and the diocese,” McGrath said. “Like the real estate market in general, which has seen many fluctuations over the years, the diocesan real estate policy is dynamic — there is no one-size-fits-all approach.”

The diocese has sold more than 90 properties since 2005, she said. More than a dozen of its former schools were sold or leased for other schools and alternative uses.

“We believe, given all the various economic ebbs and flows in Western Massachusetts, this is quite an achievement,” said McGrath.

Value, use, community benefits, timing, location, demand and site specifics all influence each transaction, she said.

“It is always our initial preference to sell buildings for reuse, preferably in a manner that benefits the local community,” she said. “It is important to note that the majority of diocesan real estate transactions in recent years have been undertaken on behalf of and for the benefit of the local parish or, in the case of a closed parish, the successor parish or a city fund.”

As of 2023, the diocese had 76 parishes and a Catholic population of 159,379.

New on the list are the former St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Adams at 2 Columbia St., where the price is available only upon inquiry. It went on the market in the fall.

And just a few weeks ago, Colebrook put up a for-sale sign in Chicopee at the former Holy Name Church at 104 Springfield St., with a sale price of $549,000. The parish, the oldest in the Springfield diocese, closed a year ago. The building dates back to 1922.

Chicopee Planner Lee Pouliot said Holy Name’s closure adds to a list of unused or underused church properties, including a former high school, St. George in Chicopee Falls, and St. Patrick near Lincoln Grove Park.

“Some of these are historic structures, particularly Holy Name,” he said. “The city would be hopeful in having some sort of dialogue with the diocese.”

But he recognizes that redevelopment is not always easy, especially churches.

“Just like an office building or a school, a church was built to be a church. It’s really (about) finding a developer who is willing to navigate that,” Pouliot said.

Not on the Colebrook website is Our Lady of Hope at 495 Armory St. in Springfield. It was closed in 2009, and the city created a one-building historic district to protect it.

Nevertheless, it sits unused, said Timothy Sheehan, Springfield’s chief economic development officer.

Sheehan said he’s had discussions with Colebrook about converting the building to housing — but only preliminary talks.

“Once again, it’s a challenge to get a project like that to pencil out,” Sheehan said, “with the cost of the project and the limited number of units you would be able to make.”

Our Lady of Hope is on Springfield’s tax rolls, according to city records. Often exempt, church property taxes are a situation that varies from city to city and site to site.

With an asking price of $595,000, the former St. Francis of Assisi Chapel at 254-262 Bridge St. in Springfield closed in 2019 and has been on the market since 2020.

Sheehan is quick to point out that the church is in the center of a downtown district that’s seeing new life, with the Springfield Innovation Center and Make-it-Springfield, a public makerspace and workshop, right next door.

“Clearly, there is a lot of activity that is happening around Stearns Square,” Sheehan said.

In Pittsfield, the former St. Joseph’s High School — 44,650 square feet on an acre of land and for sale for $2 million — has been vacant since ServiceNet moved its shelter to a new site.

“The city would very much like to see this property back in active use,” said Pittsfield Community Development Director Justine Dodds. “Housing is certainly a need, and we would be happy to support housing opportunities for the property.”

Properties for sale

BERKSHIRE COUNTY

St. Thomas Aquinas Church, 2 Columbia St., Adams

Price available on request

Former St. Joseph High School, 22 Maplewood Ave., Pittsfield

Listed for $2 million; available to rent for $6 per square foot

HAMPSHIRE COUNTY

St. Mary of the Assumption, 3 Elm St., Northampton

Under agreement to sell at $1.1 million

St. Mary School, 60 South St., Ware

Listed for $699; available to rent at $8-$8.50 per square foot.

HAMPDEN COUNTY

Former Immaculate Conception School, 70 North Summer St. Holyoke

Listed for $499,000

Immaculate Conception Convent, 94 Mosher St., Holyoke

Listed for $325,000

Holy Name Church, 104 Springfield St., Chicopee

Listed for $549,000

St. Francis of Assisi Chapel, 254-262 Bridge St., Springfield

Listed for $595,000

Blessed Sacrament Church rectory, 6 Union St., Westfield

Under agreement to be sold to the city of Westfield for $758,000

SOURCE: Colebrook Realty Services