The future of the dismantled St. Saviour’s Church and the proposal for a lithium-ion battery storage facility were the big issues debated at the Middle Village Residents Association (MVRA) meeting on Feb. 3 at Our Lady of Hope Catholic Academy.
All Faiths Cemetery Treasurer James McClelland spoke, at the behest of MVRA President Paul Pogozelski, on the status of St. Saviour’s — which currently sits in pieces inside two tractor-trailers parked inside the cemetery near 69th Street, and other business related to cemetery property.
The condition of St. Saviour’s came to light in December after a QNS report and investigation. The pieces of the 150-year-old house of worship, which had been meticulously taken down and catalogued in 2008 through an effort spearheaded by the Juniper Park Civic Association (JPCA), have remained in storage since efforts to have it rebuilt within All Faiths’ had not come to fruition.
“[We got] a lot of emails, a lot of phone calls that came in that people who actually wanted to know why it’s been sitting around for so long,” Pogozelski said.
McClelland provided further details about a Jan. 22 assessment of the St. Saviour’s wood framing conducted by the New York Landmarks Conservancy (NYLC). According to NYLC, a determination on its quality could only be made after laying out the wood over 0.25 acres to scan every piece — a process that would take about six months to complete.
Though McClelland previously stated that such an effort would impact cemetery operations, All Faiths nonetheless remains willing to allow St. Saviour’s to be rebuilt on its grounds, provided the proper financial backing could be found for the inspection and, later, reconstruction.
“We would love to have a chapel. We would love to boast that we’ve restored St. Saviour’s in conjunction with the JPCA,” McClelland. “We’re willing to find a spot on our property, but we can’t do it without financial support. I don’t know what that financial support looks like.”
The JPCA, however, contested claims that the wood had been left to rot for 15 years and claimed that the trailers in which the church has been stored had been broken into.
Alicia Vaichunas, deputy chief of staff to City Council Member Phil Wong and a JPCA member, then questioned Pogozelski — a one-time City Council candidate whom the JPCA has criticized for prior statements about St. Saviour’s — on who had broken the trailer locks. Cemetery groundskeepers had attested that no locks were present on the trailers until recently this year.
Vaichunas also questioned why JPCA leadership — including former City Council Member Robert Holden, who had led the salvation effort as JPCA president — were not invited to Thursday’s MVRA meeting.
“Why at one point didn’t anybody reach out to Council Member Holden or Juniper Park Civic Association, Tony Nunziato or Christina Wilkinson, that were part of putting that church [there], labeling it? We’re very grateful for All Faiths for what they did in storing it for us and possibly being able to build it there,” Vaichunas said. “[But] somebody broke the lock and went in there.”
The cost of rebuilding
The JPCA claimed in a recent post that the NYLC is “currently drawing up an estimate of how much reconstruction would cost.” However, NYLC Staff Member James Mahoney previously told QNS it would not be involved in the reconstruction effort.
“We wouldn’t do it. It needs to come from the community… we can’t take on a project that size,” Mahoney said in QNS’ Feb. 4 report. “I don’t know who was trying to do it before, if it was one of the civic associations, but, it needs to come from them and then they need to start hiring people.”
While the NYLC never went on record with a full price of the project, McClelland and MVRA Vice President Augie Trinchese estimated that the full reconstruction of St. Saviour’s could range anywhere from $5-7 million. According to a spokesperson for Wong, both Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Speaker Julie Menin were “very interested” in the project when they met in person in January. Wong is planning to meet with the Office of Budget Management (OBM) to discuss the church soon.
A member of Mamdani’s team has yet to confirm this interest would lead to advocacy or funding for the church’s restoration, and Menin’s office has not yet responded for comment. Since the meetings, Mamdani announced the city is facing $12 billion budget deficit for 2026-2027 — which could complicate community efforts to secure city funding for the reconstruction.
Then there’s the question of where inside All Faiths could be rebuilt.
The trailers are currently located in a back lot being leased by Soltage, a New Jersey-based solar energy company, which has proposed a lithium-ion battery storage facility on the grounds. Soltage has retained the lease and is negotiating with Con Edison over the interconnection costs to join its grid.
Concerns about the proposed location have sparked protests and other concerns about potential environmental/health risks. Wong is also steadfast in opposition to the site’s use for battery storage, though he is supportive of idea of a similar facility at another location.
“The possibility of this type of facility in a residential area is deeply concerning. The proposed location is directly across from PS/IS 128 and next to a school annex, a children’s fun house, a daycare, and an animal hospital. Families and neighbors have every right to be alarmed,” Wong said in a press release. “I stand with the community. I stood with residents at a rally last year, and I continue to stand with them today.”
However, close proximity to such a facility does not present any daily health risks, and even emitted pollutant during a fire are comparable to a house or apartment building. According to NYS Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA), fires at Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS), like the one Soltage proposed, “are extremely rare” and the danger of a fire is 1 in 10 million, with that rate steadily dropping as code and regulations improve. All fire departments are trained to handle the fires, and “there have been no reports of harmful levels of environmental contaminants detected following [a fire] outside the immediate vicinity, or project fence.”
“You’re seeing, for the first time in 20 years, pretty dramatic demand growth,” said Soltage Vice President of Storage Development Dirk van Ouwerkerk. “There’s no space to build more distribution substations, so by the time distribution becomes a real problem, this is the only solution. It’s very hard to build new wires in the streets, so you’re going to need to use the grid better.”
According to NYSERDA, placing a BESS next to a school or a residential area is safe following all applicable rules and regulations, and community storage helps prevent blackouts and brownouts to all residences or businesses connected to its subsection of the grid by improving overall reliability. The main consideration for site planning of such facilities in the handbook is access and impact to the grid.
The Moss Landing Battery Plant in Vistra, CA, that caught fire and forced the evacuation of 1,500 people due to contamination, is not the industry standard, and NYSERDA called facility’s infrastructure “globally unique.” Though the investigation into the Moss Landing fire is ongoing, experts believe it to be a failure in oversight and regulation. New York fire code requires batteries undergo testing to determine “thermal runaway” of the batteries, which can be decommissioned if determined to be unsafe.
The Moss Landing facility is one of the largest in the world with a capacity of 650 MW. The proposed Soltage BESS is only 20 MW.
If the trailers are moved, some question whether Soltage will come in and establish the battery storage site.
“So now when the trailers are gone, it’s now going to be available for the battery ion company to come in and lease it,” Vaichunas said.
But McClelland insisted no such plan exists.
“We’re not pursuing it… it will not happen,” based of the community’s response. The lease for the property is up soon, though neither party has met to discuss the contract yet.
‘It’s our community’
Early in the meeting, after the initial interjection by Vaichunas, other community members made some of their own. One resident questioned the hostility over the church’s fate.
“Why is everything so adversarial?” stated Middle Village resident Barbara Jankowski, who rose from her seat. “When I walked in the room, there was a tension of hostility and I don’t get where it’s coming from. We’re all here for the same reason…. because starting out adversarial, we’re not going to get anywhere. And if we don’t learn anything about what’s happening, if we can’t communicate, we’re never going to get anywhere.”
Another attendee questioned if a restoration is worth the seven-figure price tag and the issue at large, a proposition which has resurfaced several times since it was dismantled nearly two decades ago.
Vaichunas charged Pogozelski to meet with the JPCA stakeholders and have the discussion on full restoration or the other options he proposed, such as moving it out of Queens to a location on Long Island.
“Quite frankly… it comes down to community support for it. You may want to find out how much community support there is for it before you have that [meeting] because if you’re talking about three people who want it, but if the rest of the community wants the money to go to Juniper Park or somewhere else… that’s a different story,” said Trinchese, later requesting the same meeting of interested parties to explore options before bringing it before the community.
In the meantime, McClelland requested that the trailers and their contents be insured while remaining on the property. Pogozelski has declared the church has a “savior,” and Wong is petitioning the City Council for funding.
Nunziato stated that while the JPCA is still grateful to the cemetery for housing the storage trailers, they would hold no meeting with McClelland to discuss either the insurance or next steps.
Holden, Wilkinson and Nunziato were previously invited to meet with the NYLC, brought to the trailers by QNS and informed of the meeting by McClelland, but none were present. Wilkinson, however, recently stated she “walked by” during the inspection in a recent statement on social media, but did not interact with anyone present during the visit.
“It’s our community. It’s our trailers. It’s our church. It’s our property. When we get funding and all, we’ll take care of it,” Nunziato said. “There’s no additional saving. We’re looking for the right time to get money and put it back up.”
