The Roman Catholic Diocese of Burlington has filed permits to demolish the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, according to the diocese.
The diocese said it does not support a change of use for the church and that the best option for former parishioners of the closed house of worship is to remove it.
“The parish has chosen demolition because it is the clearest way to show the reduction of a property’s sacredness,” Monsignor Peter Routhier of the diocese said in a letter to the city that accompanied the demolition permit.
The cathedral at 20 Pine Street is currently under contract to be sold, Routhier wrote. While the buyer’s identity has not been disclosed, Routhier said that if the property is successfully cleared, he expected the buyer “will, in a reasonable time period, submit an application to the city for the redevelopment of the property.”
The commercial real estate firm Donahue and Associates lists the 2.2-acre lot west of the transit center and just north of the CityPlace development at $8.5 million. In promotional materials, the firm touts potential development opportunities, showing renderings of both six-story and 10-story buildings as examples.
The church has attempted to secure demolition permits for the cathedral once before, in December 2021, according to zoning documents.
But it was withdrawn two months later, after what Donahue and Associates characterized as confusion with the zoning office over whether the building could be eligible for historic designation, and whether that would restrict its demolition.
This time around, the diocese has sought the advice of an attorney. Included with the new zoning permit filed this week is a legal opinion from attorney James Langan, who argues that the building is not listed in the historic registry and is ineligible since it is under 50 years old.
Langan also cites a state law that restricts zoning requirements on “churches and other places of worship,” among other building types.
But opponents disagree with the application of that statute. Preservation Burlington, a nonprofit group that advocates for the preservation of historic buildings in the city, said in a letter to the city last year that the cathedral “is no longer a church.”
“It has not been used as such for several years, and it has been officially deconsecrated. The last mass was celebrated in the building on December 8, 2018, after which it was decommissioned as a church building,” Karyn Norwood, president of Preservation Burlington, said in the letter.
The diocese said in interviews that the last mass was held May 2021.
Norwood also described the property as “the pre-eminent example of the integration of modernist architecture and landscape design in the city.”
The original cathedral was built in 1867 but burned down in 1972, and the new cathedral was completed on the same site five years later, according to a history in its 1977 dedication program.
In 19th century Burlington, the need for a larger structure for the Catholic church was driven by a population increasing through immigration. The campaign to build the church was started by Bishop Louis de Goesbriand in 1860, who commissioned architect Patrick Keeley to design a gothic cathedral. The construction of the stone cathedral was halted at times, including while labor was scarce due to the Civil War. Though the main tower would not be completed until 1904, the cathedral was opened for mass in 1867.
The cathedral stood for more than a century at the corner of St. Paul and Cherry Streets, until the night of March 18, 1972, when it was destroyed by a fire thought to be arson, according to reporting at the time from the Burlington Free Press.
After the fire, the diocese resolved to rebuild, according to other newspaper clippings. But to build the same gothic structure would have been “costly beyond belief,” according to Routhier, who was then a seminarian. He said the church did not want rebuilding costs to exceed the $1.5 million it received in an insurance payout, so a smaller cathedral was planned.
Architect Edward Larabee Barnes was chosen in May 1975, according to the written history, and construction started that fall, with glazed brick both green and brown. A prominent roof was clad in copper, which now has a green patina.
“It is a significant, yet simple and modest structure providing an atmosphere of quiet and reflection for those who would like to draw apart from the busyness of everyday life,” the written history reads.
The landscape architecture by designer Dan Kiley, featuring more than 100 locust trees, has also been celebrated. Preservation Burlington, in its letter to the city opposing last year’s demolition, called Barnes and Kiley “nationally-renowned designers” and said that the cathedral “reflects an important chapter in Burlington’s urban development and its relationship to the Catholic Church.”
Now, the cathedral sits empty. The locust trees have grown tall since their planting in 1977, but the property’s green space is surrounded by chain-link fence which has not completely deterred graffiti, including a steel bell tower that sits at the corner of St. Paul and Cherry Streets, which is a frequent target of vandalism.
Representatives of the diocese said it was never a good fit for the parish. Routhier pointed out that just a few blocks away in Burlington’s Old North End is the Cathedral of St. Joseph, which dates to 1877 and has a much higher capacity with seating for about 900 people, more than twice that of the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception.
Speaking in St. Joseph’s cathedral, Routhier said having two cathedrals in the same city is not typical for the Catholic Church.
“It doesn’t make a lot of sense,” Routhier said. “You just need one.”
With the sale of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, they hope to reinvest into St. Joseph as well as their nearby charity Joseph’s House. During a recent walk through of the cathedral, Routhier and others from the diocese also pointed out what they described as “deferred maintenance” for what they called one of the diocese’s most historic buildings.
“And so we really want to preserve that,” Routhier said.
