St. Savior’s future in doubt again

The developer of the St. Savior’s site in Maspeth said that all bets are now off the table a week after withdrawing a proposal to build housing around the historic church.
“The market ruined, I’d sunk enough money into the project, and the plan as I had spoken about it with various representatives of the community was probably not going to be approved by City Planning,” said the developer, who agreed to speak about the property only on the condition that he is not named.
“All options are open,” he said.
“We are talking with people who are interested in potentially buying it. I would like to develop it myself because that’s what I do, but if it makes sense to do something else, I will,” the developer said.
In 2005, the Maspeth Development LLC reportedly bought the one-block site containing the 160-year-old church from San Sung Korean Methodist Church for $6 million. Originally, the developer had plans to knock down the church and build about 70 housing units, which would have required a zoning variance. After several months, the company developed a plan, which would have left the church structure standing and housing to be built around it, but the proposal would have also required the church property to get approval for a switch from M1-1D zoning to R5B.
According to the developer, embattled Councilmember Dennis Gallagher played a large role in the negotiations that would have saved the historic church’s actual structure but allowed for housing on the site, located at 58th Street and 57th Road.
The Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA), led by President Robert Holden, have been criticizing the tentative plan since last year, calling instead for the entire 1.5-acre property to be preserved as a park or community center. However, representatives from the Landmarks, Preservation Commission (LPC) said in the past that the site could not be preserved as a landmark because too many alterations had been made to the church.
In addition, the New York City Parks Department said that they were not interested in acquiring the site, which was reportedly on the market for $10 million.