$1 Million in Repairs It Couldn’t Afford, 41 Homes It Helped Create: A Minneapolis Church Sells and Stays

• Calvary Lutheran Church in south Minneapolis faced more than $1 million in deferred maintenance.
• It sold its campus to the nonprofit Trellis in 2021 and leases space back for weekly services.
• Belfry Apartments opened in December 2023 with 41 homes, 15 of them for people leaving homelessness or with disabilities.
• The $23.5 million project serves households earning 30 per cent or less of area median income.

A Minneapolis congregation that could no longer afford its building found a way to keep worshipping there while turning much of it into homes. The Star Tribune reported that Calvary Lutheran Church’s campus has become Belfry Apartments.

The church, at 3901 Chicago Avenue South, faced more than $1 million in deferred maintenance. In 2021 it sold its campus to Trellis, a nonprofit developer, and now leases space back for weekly services. Belfry Apartments opened in December 2023 with 41 units, from studios to four-bedroom homes, in the redeveloped school building, the church basement and a new building on the former parking lot.

All units are for households earning 30 per cent or less of the area median income, which the report put at between $26,100 and $37,260 a year. Fifteen are reserved for people leaving homelessness or with disabilities. Weeks after opening, 88 people were on the waiting list. The project cost $23.5 million, funded by the Minneapolis Public Housing Authority, the city, Hennepin County and the state.

Church council president Sarah Shepherd said: “We desperately needed a solution… But Calvary was committed to our mission of being in the city for good.” Mayor Jacob Frey said: “This is a tremendous step in the right direction, and we need more deeply affordable housing in this city and throughout the region.” Church member Anne Boone, 76, said: “You basically priced them out, so to have affordable housing in a decent building, it makes a big difference.”

The Calvary model, sell the property to a housing partner and lease back the worship space, lets a congregation shed a repair bill it cannot carry without leaving its home. Jamaican churches facing large repair bills on old buildings could explore similar arrangements, though they depend on having a capable partner and public funding. For renters priced out of city neighbourhoods, church land can be one place where new homes at genuinely low rents get built.

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