Community Corner

New Church to be Constructed in Mineola

Grace International Church to be torn down and replaced with modern structure.

Mineola’s “Street of Churches” will be getting a shiny, new, upgraded model where the now stands. Following a request from the church and it’s contracted architectural firm, the has given the go-ahead for a new building to be constructed in the parking lot where the current church now stands.

The go-ahead was not without its hurdles, however, as the board first had to clear away an existing historical designation which had been on the books.

The church’s landmark status was first discovered following the initial contact by the church’s architectural firm, RJW of Rockville Centre, which sent a letter on July 17 outlining an application for a large steel extension at the rear of the church on the east side of the building

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Following after a discussion with Reverend Wilson Jose, the church’s pastor, the firm proposed to demolish the existing church, which is on the north side of the property, and sought to build a new more modern church on the south side with adequate parking where the existing church now stands.

During a routine investigation of the church’s records by the village building department, it was discovered that there was a historical designation attached to the church that no one was aware of regarding the windows that existed at the time the designation was granted.

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The architects then sent a letter to the village on July 30 asking for the historical designation to be removed so that plans for the new church could move forward.

At the August 8 meeting of the village board at the , building superintendent Dan Whalen stated that he had visited the church, taking photos of all the windows which currently exist at the site “and all of the windows which were the subject of the historical designation with the exception of one are gone,” he said. “No one knows of their whereabouts, the current owner does not have them, he was not in possession of them when he bought the building approximately 4 years ago. As a result, the architect, they are asking the board to consider a request... to remove its landmark status.”

The one window that remains is located on the north side of the church.

“I’ve been assured that that will be removed very carefully and incorporated in the new design,” Whalen said, adding that he did not know how many windows were part of the historical designation or in what year it was made.

Village attorney John Spellman said that the designation was made by the village board about 2007.

“That congregation came before the board requesting it,” trustee George Durham said. “It was part of when the gazebo and some of the other buildings were declared landmarks.”

When asked by , Durham confirmed that that congregation has since been dissolved.


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