A 109-year-old house in Grand Forks was torn down this week to make room for surface parking, disappointing some historic preservation advocates.
The property, located at 125 Belmont Road, is owned by the adjacent Cottonwood Community Church and was most recently used as a rental. The Rev. Bob Bartlett said upkeep costs and the need for additional parking space contributed to the decision to tear the building down.
Bartlett said they were hoping to find somebody who would "appreciate the historic perspective" of the house and move it. But the church only found "partial interest" in that offer, and Bartlett said the move would have been difficult.
"The cost estimates were pretty significant," he said.
The demolition should allow for about 20 new parking spots, Bartlett said, helping relieve a difficult parking situation with several nearby churches.
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The two-story home was built in 1906, according to county property records. It had four bedrooms, 1.25 bathrooms and an attached garage.
Salvaging history
The church allowed Zack Petrick to salvage some pieces from the single-family home before it came down. That included doors and some hand-painted murals on the walls.
"I talked to a company out in Ohio that specializes in (murals) and they kind of gave me some tips as to how to try to remove them," he said. "We were able to get a couple of those out."
Petrick is moving to Denver to study historical architecture and runs a Facebook page called the Grand Forks Postcard Project. A video of the house being demolished and 75 photos of it were posted on the page this week.
Petrick said he sold some of the pieces, and he kept others or gave to them to people who are restoring their own homes.
The house was on the National Register of Historic Places, and was a "contributing element in the Near Southside Historic District," said Peg O'Leary, coordinator of the Grand Forks Historic Preservation Commission. Still, that doesn't mean Cottonwood Community Church needed permission to tear the house down.
"There wouldn't have been any regulations that stopped them from tearing it down," she said.
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O'Leary acknowledged that moving the house would have been difficult because of its size.
"It couldn't have gone very far," she said. "There was a point in time when we had empty lots right in that neighborhood that it might have gotten to, but not now."
Sensitive to preservation
Bartlett said the church acquired the property in 2003 and the home was used as a rental for the last six or seven years.
Cottonwood also looked at other options like turning it into an annex for the Northlands Rescue Mission, but upkeep costs were piling up. That included a remodeled bathroom and soffits that needed to be replaced.
"It was becoming cost-prohibitive," Bartlett said. Selling it may have led to some "disputes," Bartlett added, because the garage opened into the church's parking lot.
For his part, Petrick doesn't hold any ill will toward the church, saying he appreciated that it allowed him to salvage pieces from the home.
"Too often historic structures are demolished without any consideration of preservation and the repurposing of their unique architectural elements," he wrote in a Facebook message. "Although we lost 125 Belmont, Cottonwood Community Church was sensitive to preservation, and for that we are very appreciative."
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