Decades of population decline and economic hardship have left some of Gary’s most iconic buildings abandoned and slowly deteriorating.
The city’s abundance of crumbling facades has shaped its reputation in popular culture — City Methodist Church, which closed in 1975 and has spent decades open to the elements, has been used as a filming location for several movies and television shows that have highlighted its state of decay, and has featured in countless videos by urban explorers posted on social media.
City officials hope that an infusion of federal funds can help jump-start the rehabilitation of City Methodist and other well-known properties. Gary is applying for a $1 million Brownfields Multipurpose Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which would help the city assess and clean up properties that face barriers to redevelopment due to environmental hazards like asbestos and lead paint. The city applied for a $400,000 EPA cleanup grant in 2022 to remediate the church, but was not selected for funding.
Chris Harris, Gary’s executive director of redevelopment, and Brenda Scott-Henry, Director of Sustainability and Environmental Affairs, discussed the city’s upcoming grant application at a virtual meeting held on Wednesday.
City Methodist is one of six priority sites identified by the city, alongside the Genesis Convention Center, the Palace Theater, the former Gordons/Sears department store on Broadway, Union Station and Gary Metro Center.
“They’re all highly visible sites,” Harris said. “For some of us that grew up here in the region as millennials, we have not seen these sites activated in their original use if activated at all. And it’s that time now to make that change to make these sites more attractive for developers.”
Two of the sites, Union Station and Gary Metro center, already have redevelopment plans in the works. In August, the city broke ground on an $8 million project that will turn Union Station into a fiber optic network hub and job training facility. The project is a collaboration between the city of Gary, the national telecommunications development firm Digital Equity LLC, and the nonprofit organization Decay Devils, which owns the site and successfully lobbied for its inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places in 2019.
The Gary Metro center is slated for redevelopment alongside other rail stations along the South Shore Line between Gary and Michigan city, where work is underway on a $649 million project to convert the railway from single to double track. Indiana Senate Enrolled Act 434, authored by State Sen. Eddie Melton, D-Gary, and passed by the Indiana State Legislature earlier this year, provides a pathway for state funds to be used for the site’s redevelopment.
The six sites identified for the grant application all sit within the boundaries of a planned Transport Development District, which will function similarly to a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district, intended to funnel increases in tax revenue into downtown infrastructure projects.
Harris explained that the EPA grant would supplement money already allocated toward the Union Station and Metro Center projects and expedite assessments of potential environmental hazards at the sites.
“The Gary Metro Center was built in a time right on the cusp of when asbestos was abolished,” he said, “so we want to make sure that if we have an opportunity to assess and understand what remediation needs to take place immediately to help fast track that project, we wanted to identify that sooner than later if we could because we want to build on the momentum of our downtown.”
The city hopes to turn the City Methodist site into a ruins garden, preserving its iconic architecture while making it safe for visitors by removing debris, and addressing flooding and unstable parts of the structure. For the other three buildings, Harris said, “all options are on the table.”
The city is soliciting letters of support from community members and organizations to bolster its application, due on Nov. 13.
Susan Thomas, legislative and policy director at the environmental advocacy group Just Transition Northwest Indiana, lauded the city’s plans at the meeting.
“What a Cinderella story this would be,” she said. “It would just be such an amazing thing for the entire region.”
adalton@chicagotribune.com
