The demolition of six homes, some nearly 100 years old, in the heart of San Diego's North Park community began Tuesday morning.
In the space of an hour or so, by 8:30 a.m., two of the structures had been torn down.
Makers Church, which occupies the space previously known as the North Park Baptist Church, hired AMG Demolition to raze half a dozen craftsman bungalows, at least one built in 1926, and other buildings in preparation of the property's transfer to an undisclosed party.
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On Monday, R. Kit Barmeyer, the managing director of the "fully integrated real estate company" CedarSt from Chicago that states on its website that it's engaged in "Creating Big Style In Smart Spaces," told NBC 7 that it had been "engaged by Makers Church to facilitate demolition of structures they own, in furtherance of improvements to their campus."
On Tuesday, Makers Church pastor Derrick Miller told NBC 7 that CedarSt had been hired for that role "in this stage of the project." He demurred when asked whether the company would be involved in other segments of the project, which the church described in a news release last week as one that included "a mix of affordable housing options": "Other than that, you know, I can't really speak to much more."
Jessica Wagner, who is a critic of the project and a North Park resident, told NBC 7 last week that she had met with Miller and others to discuss the changes in her neighborhood. She said she showed attendees at the meeting a photograph she said was originally posted on the CedarSt website (since taken down, Wagner told NBC 7) that showed an eight-story glass and steel structure with a pool and roof deck, among other elements. Wagner, who is affiliated with a website called Stop Makers Church said that the church's representatives confirmed that the photo was, indeed, a rendering of the project as they understood it. On Tuesday, Miller confirmed he had met with Wagner but denied being shown the photo or confirming what it was. In fact, he told NBC 7 he had never seen the photograph prior to viewing it on a website opposed to the project.
Other than meeting with Wagner and a few other residents who were upset over the project, Miller said, church officials, who, according to Miller "ultimately deeply desire to be good neighbors," did no community outreach regarding the project other than internal discussions with the Makers Church congregation.
"… we definitely met with the congregation and talked about it in all sorts of different vision meetings and stuff like that, but we did not hold any public conversations around the plan at all," Miller said.
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Miller did, however, discuss the project in part on Tuesday, if not in specifics. For one thing, he said church officials had pursued a buyer that was committed to including off-street parking in the project, not a requirement in the city's new Complete Communities program.
"We know that that would be a huge impact to the neighborhood," Miller said. "And so we did find a buyer that was willing to put parking in, and we did leave quite a bit of money on the table because of that requirement, but for us, that was an important part of how we felt like we could be good neighbors in this whole transaction."
Makers Church plans to use the funds from the sale of the 35,000-square-foot contiguous Bancroft Street property on repairs and renovations to the church's main facility across North Park Way.
"I don't have an exact number on that, but we're expecting it to be several million dollars to do the extensive work that needs to be done," said Miller, who hopes the church's construction, on which the "majority of the sale proceeds" will be spent, will be completed by early 2025.
Regardless of what happens with the soon-to-be vacant lot across the street, Makers Church is looking ahead to find ways for its congregation of 400 or so parishioners, about half of whom Miller said live in North Park, to connect with their community.
"One of the things that we really took to heart as we were kind of imagining our new future with a refurbished building was kind of centered around the question, How can we leverage the facility that we have for good in the neighborhood?" Miller said.
In addition to religious services, Miller said that two ways to connect with North Parkers are having an event space within the church, which the community could rent out, as well as an on-site cafe.
"We have a front door that we could open seven days a week, and kind of looked around that little part of North Park and realized that it's not too saturated with coffee and that it would be something that we could use our building for throughout the week that would be a blessing to the neighborhood," Miller said. "So that's kind of what inspired that. And we definitely are interested in using the building seven days a week for the good of the neighborhood. And so coffee is one of those ideas."
