Church’s Path Cleared To Sell Ex-Convent

Saints Aedan & Brendan Church is one step closer to selling a former convent building on McKinley Avenue, after winning zoning relief for the church’s Westville campus. The building’s future use remains uncertain.

Those approvals came during Tuesday night’s regular monthly Board of Zoning Appeals meeting, which was held online via Zoom.

The zoning commissioners unanimously granted the church three separate variances for its five-building, 2.23-acre campus at 112 Fountain St.

The approvals were for a variance to allow for a side yard of 1.5 feet where 12 feet is required, to allow a rear yard of 9.1 feet where 25 feet is required, and to allow a 12.1‑foot porch and stair projection into a rear yard where 5 feet is permitted.

The church’s attorney, Brian Stone (pictured), told the zoning board that the various zoning relief requests were all designed to make the former convent building at 349 McKinley Ave. more attractive to prospective buyers.

“We’re asking for these variances to enable the church to sell a portion of the site, which is the old convent and which is no longer used for that purpose,” Stone said. ​“There’s no need for that use anymore.” The church, he said, is eager to ​“put that building built 75 years ago to productive use, and put it on the tax rolls again.”

The requested zoning relief would help make the property more attractive for potential buyers, he said, by creating lot lines for the former convent.

The church’s zoning relief application states that separating the convent from the rest of the church’s campus would result in technically noncompliant yards. It argues that ​“creates the most unusual hardship of precluding the splitting of the property where there will be no change in the physical characteristics of the site, and where the variances relate to non-conformities totally interior to the overall site and not along any other property.”

Stone reiterated during Tuesday’s meeting that the church does not plan on building any new structures on on its Westville campus, whether at the site of the former convent or elsewhere. ​“We’re just looking to be able to divide the property.”

He said that the convent was built in the early 1940s. At that point in time, the building was put together as one parcel with the rest of the former St. Aedan’s campus, which includes the church itself, a rectory, a school, and a garage.

City zoning board staffer Nate Hougrand said he received emails from Westville neighbors in advance of Tuesday’s hearing, asking what the proposed future use of the convent building would be.

“The applicant has not yet determined what that use would be,” he said. But, depending on that use, any future conversion would almost certainly require some public hearing — whether before the BZA, or before the City Plan Commission.

Four years ago, a local architect pitched Westville neighbors on converting the former convent building into nine new condominiums.

Fernando Pastor of SEEDnh said that the building, designed by Schilling & Goldbecker, contains 20 small one-bedroom ​“nun’s cells” on three floors, a full height-basement and significant attic space. He said at the time that the building had been up for sale since 2013.

At the time, Pastor was planning on working with Rafael Sanz of the Elm Street-based Caritas Capital Partners to develop the property.

When reached for comment Tuesday night, Pastor said that he is no longer involved in any plans to convert the former convent into condos.

“My client at the time returned to his home country and desisted to pursue the project,” he wrote by email.

He said he was not aware of the BZA application heard Tuesday night. After reviewing the requested zoning relief and proposed lot lines, Pastor wrote, ​“the project my client was proposing a couple of years ago will not be feasible as the areas necessary for off-site parking are not part of the lot plan presented today.”

A Loopnet real estate listing for the convent does not list a proposed sale price. It does, however, advertise the convent building as the site for an ​“ideal renovation to upscale condo or apartment units”.