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BEL-NOR, Mo. (AP) — A community's push to save a 1920s convent at the edge of University of Missouri-St. Louis' campus from demolition has failed.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1AigAtx ) reports that the university plans to demolish the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity of Incarnate Word Convent and turn it into green space.
Due to an annual cost of about $150,000 to maintain the property, the school began to consider demolition, at an estimated cost of $1 million. Nearby residents who called the convent "an excellent example of American craftsmanship, masonry and metalwork from the early 20th century with architectural characteristics from 11th and 12th century southern France, Spain and Italy," started an online petition to save the convent.
Since the building was constructed in the 1920s, the number of nuns dwindled and it was sold to the university for $1.2 million.
The convent was used for campus housing, the honors college and office space over the years before it was left vacant.
The university invited outside parties to devise plans to buy and preserve the property, as long as they did not involve the school spending money.
Only one response was received, said university spokesman Bob Samples. "It didn't meet the financial parameters that we'd set out," Samples said.
The school estimates that renovating the convent and the attached residential space would cost $11 million.
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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com
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