It has been a huge pile of rubble in the heart of downtown Elmira for more than a year, but the remnants of a former church that was gutted by flames early in 2025 may finally get cleaned up in the coming months.
It was late in the evening Feb. 13 last year when a blaze broke out at the former First Baptist Church at 121 W. Church St., which was vacant at the time. By the time firefighters finally doused the inferno, all that was left of the historic structure was a smoldering shell.
The City of Elmira hired a demolition company from Syracuse to tear down the building, which was considered a total loss and a safety hazard.
The pile of bricks and other rubble, since fenced in, has sat there while the city unsuccessfully tried to get the owner of record, Marian Laurentiu of Tannery Creek Road in Corning, to deal with it.
Now Chemung County has taken the future of that site out of Laurentiu’s hands.
Laurentiu, who owns about a dozen parcels around Elmira and the county, according to county real property records, owed more than $23,000 in back taxes on the Church Street site, according to the Chemung County Treasurer’s Office.
The county foreclosed on the former church property about four or five weeks ago, according to County Executive Christopher Moss, who said the plan now is to figure out how to clean it up.
“It’s going to cost about $1.1 million but I’ve been advised the city has money to clean it up, and they’d like to take possession,” Moss said. “They would like us to turn it over to them. It’s not easy just giving it back to the city. There’s a protocol we have to go through. At the end of the day, the goal is to get it cleaned up. There’s asbestos dust on it, so we have to be careful.”
The First Baptist Church was built in the 1890s. In October 2010, church trustees sold the property to Laurentiu for $82,750, according to Chemung County real property records.
The former church had been vacant for more than 10 years at the time of the fire, officials said. Laurentiu, who is up to date with taxes on his other properties, according to the county treasurer’s office, simply walked away from the Church Street site after the fire, Elmira Mayor Dan Mandell said.
The city has someone who will carry out the cleanup for less than $1.1 million, according to Mandell, who said the Church Street site has a lot of potential and the city wants to see that opportunity pay off.
“We’d like to obviously at some point get that land sold to a developer to build something over there. It’s prime real estate,” Mandell said. “We have a plan to market it. It’s in the heart of our downtown. We’d love to see it developed.”
This article originally appeared on Elmira Star-Gazette: Cleanup planned on site where downtown Elmira church burned in 2025
Reporting by Jeff Murray, Elmira Star-Gazette / Elmira Star-Gazette
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Jeff Murray, Elmira Star-Gazette | USA TODAY Network
