Eight townhouses are planned on vacant St. Laurentius site in Fishtown

It’s been 11 years since St. Laurentius Roman Catholic Church closed its doors, and almost three since the Fishtown neighborhood icon was razed after a long and controversial redevelopment debate.

Now two local developers, Ben Katz and Henry Siebert, are planning eight large townhouses with parking on the former church site.

They acquired the site in March under the name Memphis Street Partners LLC. There is not a sale price proposed for the homes yet, though they will be market rate.

» READ MORE: Timeline: How St. Laurentius went from storied church to vacant lot

“We are building a very tasteful townhome project,” said Katz, who lives in Fishtown.

Although several previous developers considered apartments for the site, Katz says his group’s focus was always single-family houses. “We didn’t really look at it any other way.”

The Historical Commission approved the proposal May 9 contingent on the developer including a permanent marker honoring St. Laurentius on the site.

In an earlier ruling, the Historical Commission required that during demolition by the previous ownership — New Jersey-based developer Humberto Fernandini — some of the church’s materials be salvaged for reuse in a future building on the site.

But at the Friday meeting, Jon Farnham, executive director of the Historical Commission, said that the order had not been executed.

“The owner demolished the church in its entirety without apparently preserving any materials or features,” said Farnham. “No historic fabric from the church survives at the site, and in fact, it is just a vacant lot.”

The Preservation Alliance of Greater Philadelphia is attempting to ascertain whether Fernandini saved any of the materials or whether they had been disposed of in a site where they might be accessible.

Katz said that he has no further information about the church’s building materials, as his team is new to the project and was not involved in the 2022 demolition.

The developers plan a three-dimensional model of St. Laurentius for the sidewalk in front of the site. They are in early talks about another kind of memorial as well.

“At this point it’s hard to say exactly what will be done, although the model will be part of it,” Katz said. As for the church’s materials, “they’re trying to locate anything remaining [and] we’re all for them trying to find whatever they can.”

The Archdiocese of Philadelphia shuttered and deconsecrated St. Laurentius in 2014, as fiscal and attendance issues forced the church to consolidate its holdings. By that time, the church building already had loose stonework and cracks in the facade.

In 2015 a group called Save St. Laurentius raised $500,000 in hopes of preserving the building and got the church historically protected, as the Archdiocese pressed for demolition.

The following year local business owner Leo Voloshin got an agreement of sale and planned to convert the property into 23 apartments, with the support of Save St. Laurentius.

But a splinter group calling themselves the Faithful Laurentians emerged to oppose him before the zoning board, when he sought permits. That kicked off a yearslong legal dispute, as the building deteriorated further with stones and other debris periodically falling from its facade.

After the dispute with the Faithful Laurentians concluded in 2018, Voloshin had the building reevaluated again. He was told that repairs costs had spiked due to further deterioration during the delays, and that his redevelopment plan was now uncertain. Fernandini then acquired the building the next year and demolished it in 2022.

With the church long since torn down, the Historical Commission has little authority over the site.

Members still provided advisory feedback on the design, praising its quality but noting that it looked more industrial than typical for the Fishtown area.

“It’s a handsome design,” said Emily Cooperman, an architectural historian on the commission. “It would be great in Old City, where there is a history of manufacturing buildings of this scale and appearance, but it is not an appropriate building ... for this location.”