Holy Trinity Church to be demolished

EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) - Holy Trinity Church has been in Downtown Evansville since 1848. It holds a lot of history, but it no longer serves this community.

That’s why the city is hoping to put something more useful in its place. The city of Evansville purchased the church for just over $400,000.

Their plan is to use the space to build an underground wastewater removal facility. Above ground, the historic pieces of the church are being preserved. Some of it will be used in the green spaces that will go in its place.

City officials say the whole project will benefit the environment.

“Roughly 2 billion gallons of wastewater goes into the Ohio River and Pigeon Creek annually. Our challenge is to build a system that will eliminate 98% of that and reduce the number of overflows from about 50 per year to about 4 per year. So this is one small project within that,” said Allen Mounts, the Evansville Water and Sewer Utilities Director.

A group of UE students with the Changelab are helping make this project possible.

It is important to note that the Diocese of Evansville was allowed to remove anything and everything that was important to them before demolition was considered.

“The diocese was allowed to remove any and all things that were important to them. The really neat thing we’re working on is the design and it’s still a work in process," Mounts said. "We’ll repurpose some of the items in the church. As we build out, some of the limestone, there’s granite inside. There’s stain glass windows. So that’s the reason it maintains the name, Trinity Stormwater Park.”

They expect the project to be complete sometime in 2021.

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