Historic Roland Avenue church on the market for $750,000

The former Roland Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church has gone on the market for $750,000, a lower price than some Roland Park homes are bringing.

Roland Park Place, a senior living community that owns the property at 4001 Roland Ave., has listed it with Monument Sotheby’s International Realty. Cindy Conklin and Brandon Golueke are the listing agents.

The stone church dates from 1912 and occupies 0.36 of an acre in a prime location at the northeast corner of Roland Avenue and West 40^th Street, one block north of The Rotunda shops and apartments. Last used as a church more than 20 years ago, it is zoned R-5, a category that permits residences or offices.

“It is the perfect setup for multi-family applications or office space,” the Sotheby’s listing states. “The interior is in disrepair and would be gutted no matter what the use.”

The building is the second dormant church in two blocks to be positioned for sale in the past year. The architectural historian James Russiello refers to them as “redundant” churches and says they can be good candidates for adaptive reuse.

Baltimore’s Planning Commission last year approved a request to subdivide a 7.5-acre property at 3900 Roland Ave. so the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland can sell the former St. Mary’s Protestant Episcopal Church.

The last tenant in that church, the Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, moved out at the end of January. It now performs in the Great Hall at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church at 1900 Saint Paul St. The subdivision split the church off from an adjacent cemetery and “will allow the church building to be sold,” according to a staff report to the planning commission.

One potential buyer for that church is Somerset Development Company, an organization that recently became part of the partnership that manages the Roland View Towers apartment buildings at 3838 Roland Ave. and 3939 Roland Ave.

Somerset is interested in incorporating the church into its residential community, mostly likely as a “community-oriented use” or combination of uses, but has not yet reached agreement with the sellers on the terms of an acquisition, according to representative William Whitman.

Connection to textile mills and a former mayor

The property at 4001 Roland Ave. is in an area known as Rolden, between Roland Park and Hampden. Roland Park Place acquired it in 2001 and has been using the property for parking and storage while construction was underway on its latest addition, an eight-story, 58-unit Independent Living wing that is now fully occupied.

Conklin said the board of Roland Park Place was waiting for construction of that addition to be completed before putting the church on the market. “Now that the new section is finished and sold out, there is no longer a long term need to own it,” she said.

According to Baltimore Heritage, a local preservation advocacy group, the existing building was constructed in 1912 to replace an earlier church that opened on the site in 1889. The architect was Alfred Lowther Forrest. A cornerstone on the building reads: ROLAND AVE M.E. CHVRCH 1889-1912.

Land for the Roland Avenue church was acquired in 1887 by Alcaeus Hooper, previously a member of the Woodberry Methodist Episcopal Church, who thought a new church was needed to serve Baltimore residents moving north from downtown. Construction started in 1888 and the first service was held the following year.

Alcaeus Hooper was a son of William Hooper, founder of the William E. Hooper and Sons Textile Mill in Woodberry, and worked with his father there. The company started out selling canvas made by other textile millers but eventually began making its own. It subsequently built or acquired the Park, Meadow, Clipper and Mount Washington mills, controlling much of the land in the Jones Falls Valley, and Hooper Avenue on Television Hill is named for the family.

Alcaeus Hooper served as Baltimore’s mayor from 1895 to 1897 and became a trustee of the Roland Avenue church in 1897. In 1911, when the building’s timber framework was deemed unsafe, the congregation built a replacement, made of stone and brick.

According to a church announcement found by Baltimore Heritage, the replacement structure cost $20,000, measured 40 feet by 60 feet, and could seat up to 350 people. The lower level contained Sunday School classrooms, a secretary’s room, library and kitchen. It was upgraded in 1927 with new lights and other improvements.

Forrest, the architect, was born in England in 1862 and moved to New York in 1900 to practice architecture and then in 1907 to Baltimore, where he had an office on Charles Street while much of the the city’s downtown business district was rebuilt following the Great Fire of 1904. He specialized in theaters. His other Baltimore buildings include the ornate Macht Building at 13 E. Fayette St. and, with Oliver Wight, the (now-demolished) New Theater at 210 W. Lexington St.

The 111-year-old church is not protected by landmark designation. In 2010, Roland Park Place proposed demolition of the building to create 30 parking spaces, a plan that drew opposition from residents in Rolden and Roland Park, including the board of the Roland Park Civic League.

Last year, City Council member Odette Ramos introduced a bill that would allow the property to be used for parking as a conditional use. Ramos said she introduced the bill to permit continued use for parking of the paved lot next to the church, not demolition of the church structure. Ramos said in an email message this week that she likely would withdraw the bill, depending on who buys the property.

Conklin said prospective buyers have looked at the building both for continued use as a church and for other uses. She said it could work as either two or four residences or as offices, and it comes with 10 off-street parking spaces.

Asked who Roland Park Place would like to see as a neighbor, she said the board feels that “another owner who could put it back to active use was the best option not only for Roland Park Place but also the community.”

Trish Schweers, who lives nearby, said she thinks the building would be ideal for occupants with some connection to the area’s history.

“I hope someone buys it and builds a millworkers’ cultural history museum with a super good bookstore and café,” she said.