Mount Vernon Place Church is sold to preservation-oriented non-profit for $500,000; congregation will remain while other uses are introduced

More than five years after it first went up for sale, a landmark Baltimore church has a new owner.

Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church has been sold to a non-profit group that aims to restore and upgrade it for new uses without displacing its current congregation. The settlement took place on Thursday, July 10, and the price was $500,000.

The buyers estimate that the cost of upgrading the church in phases could be anywhere from $5 million to $10 million, and most likely from $8 million to $10 million or more. Their estimated timetable for finishing all of the work is up to four to six years, but they say some phases of the renovation could be completed much sooner than that.

UNITE Mount Vernon Inc. is the name of the private organization that acquired the 153-year-old church at 2 E. Mount Vernon Place. The Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church was the seller. PraiseBuildings, a brokerage that specializes in the sale of church properties, represented the seller.

Asbury House at 10 E. Mount Vernon Place, an 1855 mansion that is next to the church and has housed the church’s offices since the 1950s, also was sold by the conference on Thursday to a separate but related buyer, Asbury House LLC.

The church sale is a milestone for an ambitious redevelopment project that has strong community support. It marks both the end of a prolonged effort by the new owners to acquire the church after a previous contract fell through, and the start of a multi-year campaign to revitalize it.

The buyer is a group of citizens who came together out of concern for the future of the landmark church, which has been largely dormant since before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 but still has a small congregation that meets on the premises.

Group members say they want to restore the church for public uses that will make it more of an asset to the surrounding Mount Vernon historic district and the rest of the city. They say they want to make the church “more public-facing” and more active. They also wanted to prevent inappropriate development from occurring on that prominent corner. They say the exact mix of uses hasn’t been determined, but the uses likely will be arts-and entertainment-based and perhaps retail-oriented, and they will be consistent with the building’s architecture. They’ve shortened the building’s name to Mount Vernon Place Church.

The group has four principals. Its chair is Jack Danna, Director of Commercial Revitalization for the Central Baltimore Partnership (CBP) and current president of the Mount Vernon Belvedere Association (MVBA), the community organization that represents the area where the church is located.

Its vice chair is Elizabeth Bonner, a preservationist and entrepreneur who owns other historic properties in the immediate area and is a board member of the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy and a former board member of the Walters Art Museum.

Its secretary is Ann Powell, an architect who heads a company called Plan Build LLC, serves on Baltimore’s preservation commission and lives a block from the church.

Its fourth member is Henry Holt Hopkins, a descendant of the founder of Johns Hopkins University, president of the board of the Mount Vernon Place Conservancy and president of The Friends of Clifton Mansion. Hopkins has been the driving force behind the phased, multi-year restoration of Clifton Mansion at 2701 St. Lo Drive, once Johns Hopkins’ country home and a potential precursor for the way the Mount Vernon Place Church development could unfold.

Seed money

Danna said his group envisions a two-phase restoration and renovation effort for the church property and that it will require a successful capital campaign to complete. He said the group has begun soliciting funds and already has access to more than $300,000.

The bulk of it is in the form of a $250,000 state bond initiative, secured by Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, that will provide seed money to launch the capital campaign and other assistance. The bond legislation passed in 2024 and the funds become available in fiscal 2025.

“The Senator was instrumental in securing the first $250,000 to help preserve the church and to ensure its long-term stewardship,” Danna said. “On behalf of the Mount Vernon Belvedere Association, we are grateful for the Senator’s hard work in obtaining this seed funding essential in attracting additional public and private investments…Senator Ferguson really helped us tremendously.”

The state bond initiative was particularly valuable because it can be used in a variety of ways, including to cover soft costs of preliminary architectural and engineering services or physical stabilization.

“This kind of money” is “almost as flexible as possible,” except it can’t be used for salaries, Danna said. “Probably a good portion of it will go to soft costs to get us going, figuring out whatever feasibility study we need to do, how do we leverage the development plan…It’s huge for us to have that.”

Other early funding sources include $50,000 from the Goldseker Foundation and $10,000 from the MVBA. This is on top of an estimated $60,000 to $80,000 that the MVBA raised from individuals over three years and spent to contest in court a previous subdivision and redevelopment plan that the community didn’t support. The money in hand, Danna said, is enough to keep the lights on while the new buyers, working with the community, finalize their plans and raise funds for the larger redevelopment project they envision.

Six types of stone

Designed by Thomas Dixon and Charles Carson, the church has seating for 900 people in its main sanctuary, a massive M. P. Moeller organ and a rose window patterned after the one at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.

The church was constructed on the spot where Charles Howard, son of Revolutionary War officer John Eager Howard, had a mansion, and Francis Scott Key, author of the Star-Spangled Banner, died in 1843. Considered a prime example of Victorian Gothic architecture, it has three spires and an exterior made of six different types of stone. Its cost, including land, building and furnishings, was $400,000 in 1872.

From 2020 to 2024, the church was under contract to a developer named Joseph Novoseller, managing partner of Aria Legacy Group of Lakewood, N. J., and it was mired in court proceedings for much of the time. Novoseller died while on a trip to Israel without completing the acquisition, and the church was put back on the market last summer.

As part of the sale, UNITE Mount Vernon signed a lease that allows the existing Methodist congregation to continue meeting in certain areas of the church while other renovation work is underway. The rent is $100 a year for 50 years, and it includes heat, electricity and water – one reason the sale price was so low.

The spaces covered by the lease include the Mount Vernon Room on the same level as the main sanctuary, where the congregation has been meeting; a Sunday school room nearby; Bosley Chapel and a storage area. The congregation also has access to certain shared spaces, including halls, restrooms and a side entrance off Charles Street.

The lease, signed before the settlement on Thursday, leaves the rest of the space in the church available for redevelopment without displacing the congregation, including the 900-seat sanctuary; a basement level space that until last summer housed a day care center, and a large upper-level multi-purpose room called Davis Hall.

Community engagement

Before any work begins, Danna said, UNITE Mount Vernon plans to have a community outreach phase that’s intended to give members of the general public a chance to say what they’d like to see at a reimagined church property.

This outreach phase will involve a “community engagement” and visioning session comparable to the public meetings that the owners of Harborplace conducted starting in 2023 to get ideas for what could be developed on the land now occupied by the two pavilions at Pratt and Light streets. That phase of development is likely to start later this year.

Asked what uses might be on the table for the church, Danna said his group has some ideas and hopes the community engagement phase will bring up others that can be fleshed out in a development plan. He said potential uses could include anything from retail to performance space, but it will depend in part on how much work is needed and what it would cost.

“We know there is going to be a stabilization phase to this, and there’ll probably be then a Phase One of the restoration and then probably a Phase Two,” he said. “Our goal the first two year is we would go in. If the roof really does need to be repaired and how effectively we do that, how do we get it to a point where the [mechanical] systems are new, we’re not taking on water, we’re starting to make some repairs to the façade that are critical that we can do within budget?”

Along with ensuring the building’s stabilization, the group will explore the best short-term and long-term uses for the interior spaces. Danna said he wants to “really tee the main sanctuary up with discussions from the congregation and the other partners: How can wedo some really cool, interim, creative programming? Do we need another event space? We don’t know that. We hope the development plan will give us guidance on those kinds of tendencies and uses.”  

Danna said he’s talked to some business people who are interested in exploring ideas for the church and he’s optimistic that others will come forward now that the sale is complete.

“Some of it is retail,” he said of ideas he has heard for the church. “Some of it may be performance space. We just don’t know. But we do know that once we get site control and we successfully celebrate with the congregation and the broader community on the settlement, there will be opportunities for people to really jump in and say, What can we do for the month of December in terms of short-term, interim programming? I’m optimistic that there won’t be a shortage of people wanting to figure that out.”

Danna said his group has reached out to some potential users or tenants, including representatives of the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, located at 1 E. Mount Vernon Place. “Peabody is growing, so there could be a potential partnership there,” he said.

Ultimately, “there is no simple private market solution here,” he said. “It’s going to need a caretaker, and the caretaker will figure out that public use. But from my experience, where we’re going here, it certainly will probably be arts-based, entertainment-based – from supporting dance, supporting theater, supporting culture, to also retail. There are people who are interested in maybe looking at a book store, looking at how a place could be retail with events space.”

Bonner said subdividing the church for housing is not envisioned. In a letter to congregation board members, she stressed that the buyers want to protect and preserve the church for its historical and architectural significance..

“Speaking for myself and the other members of UNITE, we are glad to be the new stewards of the Mount Vernon Methodist Church,” she wrote. “All of us share a close connection to the neighborhood. We appreciate what a special building this is.”

While the group envisions introducing new uses that will help activate the church property on a daily basis, she wrote, “we also wish to preserve the history of those who built the Church over many generations, and whose lives were shaped here by the sacraments and other milestones of Christian life. They are part of the history of Mount Vernon and of Baltimore City.”

“The community loves these buildings and we try and always cherish as many as possible,” Danna said. “This one, we just really had to stand up for, and it turned out for the best.”

Along with the community engagement effort, the group will be collecting and evaluating information about the building, including its structural condition and the state of its exterior stonework; the soundness of its roof and mechanical systems, and the status of the Moeller organ. For the past several years, the main sanctuary has been off limits due to concerns about roof leaks and falling plaster.

The group doesn’t have to start from scratch. Before the pandemic, Morabito Consultants prepared an engineering report that addressed the church’s structural condition. Morabito, with offices in Maryland and Florida, is the firm that warned about the condition of Champlain Towers South, the Miami condominium building that partially collapsed in 2021. Its warnings weren’t heeded, and the collapse caused the deaths of 98 people. In addition, Lewis Contractors of Owings Mills made a proposal to the Methodist conference for restoring the church before Novoseller got it under contract. The conference also has records of roof repairs and other work it has completed over the years.

Danna said the group doesn’t have an architect at this point but will be assembling a design team to help guide its work.

Two-phase renovation

Beyond the information-gathering, Danna said, the two major phases of construction will essentially include a stabilization phase and a construction phase.

As part of the stabilization phase, he said, the group will address areas of the building shell and mechanical systems that need to be repaired or modified before any other work. He estimates that stabilization and critical repairs could cost $1 million.

The second phase is “a full-fledged, phased restoration” that would alter the building to accommodate future uses, once it has been stabilized. That may include introducing an elevator for accessibility, or installing new mechanical systems, or reconfiguring certain areas. Danna said he estimates that the cost of a full-fledged construction project could be $7 million to $9 million, depending on the scope of work.

Estimates at this point are subject to change, he warned. “There are plans out there that say it could be $15 million,” he said. “One thing I’ve learned is that you can reach for a price and someone’s going to find you that price.”

While the projected timeframe for completing all the work is four years or more, Danna said, the church has distinct areas that can be renovated in phases, as uses and tenants are identified and funds become available. That means certain areas of the church could be opened and programmed relatively quickly. For example, the basement level has entrances that can be opened and closed separately from the rest of the church, and the sanctuary could potentially be opened for pop-up events such as a book fair, lectures or preservation tours.

One decision that must be made is whether the wooden pews will remain. Bonner said it would be ideal if they could be in place for weddings and other large gatherings but removed and temporarily stored for events that require unobstructed floor space. One consideration, she said, is that some of the pews were donated by congregation members, and the buyers want to respect that and keep as much of the existing architecture as possible.

Legal fund

UNITE Mount Vernon was established with the primary mission of renovating and activating the church, if the group was able to acquire it. But the corporate entity was structured legally, Danna said, so it’s capable of buying and renovating other properties in Mount Vernon, if it couldn’t buy the church or if another opportunity arose.

In the mid-1900s, a group of neighbors in Bolton Hill created a fund to acquire properties in that neighborhood to prevent them from deteriorating or being acquired by slumlords. The goal was to stabilize the neighborhood by pairing rundown properties with owner-occupants who would invest in them and the surrounding area.

Mount Vernon never had a similar vehicle for buying derelict properties the way Bolton Hill did, Danna said, but with UNITE Mount Vernon it does now.

Danna explained that the incorporation papers for UNITE Mount Vernon were drafted so that the organization could take on more than one redevelopment project, if members had the desire and the resources. The legal framework also allows more board members to be added over time.

Danna said MVBA and UNITE Mount Vernon received support from lawyers who worked pro bono or at a discounted rate, including Saul Ewing attorney Gregory Rapisarda, who represented MVBA in court, and attorneys from Venable LLP, which worked on the articles of incorporation for UNITE Mount Vernon and the lease with the congregation. He also credits Goldseker CEO Matthew Gallagher for understanding the need for start-up funds.

Another timely contribution came from Preservation Maryland, a statewide preservation agency led by President and CEO Nicholas Redding. Danna and Bonner said UNITE Mount Vernon has applied to the IRS to be eligible to accept tax-deductible contributions to its capital campaign but until that’s authorized, Preservation Maryland has agreed to be the fiscal sponsor on behalf of UNITE Mount Vernon through 2025. That means Preservation Maryland is authorized to accept donations to support the church revitalization, effectively immediately.

“There was generosity all around, from the legal field to the preservation field to the community [members] who just wanted to see this building cherished and get into the good hands of someone who could steward its long-term care and help us reimagine it in a way that continues to move Mount Vernon forward,” he said.

Now that UNITE Mount Vernon has acquired the church, Danna said, its redevelopment will be the group’s primary focus. But if the group identifies one or more other properties that need similar help, UNITE Mount Vernon is in a position to act.

“The immediate vision and focus is the church, but UNITE is broad enough to focus on the preservation and activation of potential other properties,” he said. “The important thing for us in Mount Vernon was to have a non-profit entity that could take on a potential other project, if needed, or if needed to be an intermediary to hold a very important property until it could either be redeveloped privately or could be redeveloped by UNITE or in some other fashion…

“That is why we had to create this entity,” he continued, “because we couldn’t find an entity to temporarily hold the church for us while we figure out even stabilization or an off-ramp, or we couldn’t find someone to kind of mingle with us to help us pull this off. That’s why we chose to create a whole new entity…Sometimes we need an entity that can also look at the physical elements of the neighborhood and say, OK, we have to stand up and save this one, too…It was critically important that we’re not put in this situation again.”  

Similarly, the allocation from the state wasn’t necessarily intended solely for the church. Danna said Ferguson, the Maryland Senate President, was instrumental in securing passage of legislation that made $250,000 available for redevelopment efforts in Mount Vernon but didn’t limit the scope to any one property, since the bill was passed before the group knew it would be able to acquire the church.

Now that the church sale has gone through, Danna said, the entire sum from the state can be used for its stabilization and restoration. In addition, $50,000 in start-up funds from Goldseker can be used to pay utility bills and cover other expenses of operating the building while the buyers finalize their redevelopment plans. Another $10,000 grant from Goldseker to the MVBA will support the community engagement session.

Next steps

The buyers have thoroughly weeded the sidewalks and tree pits around the church and they were prepared to change the locks immediately after the settlement. One of the next changes that the general public may see, they say, likely will involve the church basement and a day care facility, the Mt. Vernon Early Learning Center, that was previously there.

The operator vacated the space when the church went on the market last summer and opened a child care facility in the former Wilkes School that’s part of the Grace & St Peters Episcopal Church campus at 707 Park Avenue, called the Little Miracle’s Big Blessings Childcare Center. Bonner and Danna say the operator wants to come back to Mount Vernon Place Church while continuing to operate her facility on Park Avenue, and they’re working with her so it can reopen as soon as possible.

The buyers say they also would like to have some events in the church before the end of the year, potentially coinciding with the annual lighting of the Washington Monument in early December and the year-end holidays. And the capital campaign will move into high gear.

“We’re going to be knocking on doors very soon, and have already on others, to start raising money,” Danna said. “It’s going to be a big lift.”

Besides protecting and invigorating a key corner of Mount Vernon Place, the buyers say, they hope their effort will serve as an example that shows how church buildings can be preserved and activated in the 21^st century.

“What we hope…is that maybe this could be somewhat of a model for how you reuse churches,” Danna said. “You only can do so much residential development and things of that nature. It’s important to have this vital piece that’s been around for 150 years.”