BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Bethlehem Parking Authority will not seek to use eminent domain to take the parking lot of St. John’s Windish Lutheran Church in Bethlehem, Executive Director Steven Fernstrom said Wednesday.
“The Bethlehem Parking Authority will not stand in the way of the church’s sale,” Fernstrom wrote in a letter dated Jan. 11.
- Bethlehem Parking Authority said in a letter Wednesday that it will not use eminent domain to take over the parking lot at St. John's Windish Lutheran Church
- The authority's threat to take the parking lot had held up a sale of three Bethlehem churches to Lehigh University
- The parking authority said it hopes that whoever buys St. John's will honor its active lease through 2026
“The Bethlehem Parking Authority has an active lease with St. John’s Windish Church to provide public parking until 2026, and we expect this lease to be honored by the next property owner," he said.
"We will be prepared to share all our parking concerns with whoever becomes the property owner."
Bethlehem Parking Authority Chairman Dino Cantelmi said in an interview Wednesday, "At this point, we are not pursuing eminent domain."
"At this point, we are not pursuing eminent domain."Bethlehem Parking Authority Chairman Dino Cantelmi
The church is among three in Bethlehem combining into what will become Trinity Lutheran Church, and selling its land in a package deal in the process.
St. John’s Windish, St. Peter’s and Light of Christ, along with St. John’s more-than-1-acre parking lot, were to be sold in a package deal. Lehigh University submitted the high bid for the set: $3.7 million, according to city officials.
Lehigh University outbid the city, which offered $3.5 million for the package of properties. At a city council meeting last week, Bethlehem Business Administrator Eric Evans said the city was “not asked to make another offer,” but would match the university’s bid if given the opportunity.
Church leaders on Sunday paused the sale as the Bethlehem Parking Authority disclosed its intention to take the St. John’s Windish parking lot — the city’s largest undeveloped space at more than an acre — through eminent domain.
The parking authority's letter came after church leaders released a statement Tuesday, accusing the authority of seeking eminent domain to punish the church for choosing Lehigh’s offer over the city’s.
Bethlehem Mayor J. William Reynolds wrote to the churches in September “that he hoped the church would entrust its properties to the city,” the church statement read.
The church statement said, “When the church made a different choice, the Parking Authority, which has leased space on the parking lot for 20 years, moved to condemn the parking lot and to rob St. John’s of the equity and value of its properties.”
Church leaders argued that losing the lot would be financially disastrous, spelling the end of their churches and their effort to combine.
Under state laws governing eminent domain, agencies pursuing a property are required to pay “just compensation” for the property they take. The agency’s final payment would have depended on the property’s fair market value before proceedings began, as decided by three court-appointed “viewers.” Either party could appeal the viewers’ decision, sending the question to trial.
Lucy Lennon, the churches’ real estate agent in the sale, said that while the church buildings are still valuable on their own, losing the lot from the package would hurt its value.
“It’s compromised,” Lennon said. “It's marketed as three churches and a parking lot because these churches were to be sold so that they could go on to their new location. They didn't want to just sell some of them.
“We all know over an acre of cleared land on the south side is very desirable. So that's a big part of the deal, let's put it that way.”
