The City of Florence is purchasing a property that once housed the city’s first Black church congregation with the intent of restoration.
The purchase of 21 Girard St. from 31 Girard Place LLC for $150,000 was approved with a 6-0 vote by the Florence City Council during Tuesday’s regular session.
“We’ve discussed this property a few times, this is a very historic property,” Florence Director of Administration/City Administrator Joshua Hunt said.
The site, which served as a centerpiece of Florence’s inaugural Juneteenth celebration earlier this year, was formerly home to the First Baptist Church of Florence – founded in 1870 by the Trustees of the Colored Baptist Association and essential to formerly enslaved people, according to records.
A historical marker was placed on the property by the Kentucky Historical Society and the Kentucky Department of Highways in 2021.
“It’s been on the market for eight or nine month,” Hunt said. “And knowing the historic significance of the property, we approached Council as the administration department and there was an opportunity to buy this structure – one of the oldest buildings in Florence. This council had the appetite to purchase it and restore it to its original glory.”
Pastor Herschel Glenn was the church’s final leader, serving from about 1957 until the church’s closing in the 1980s, For Family By Family, a Florence-based community outreach and resource organization, founder Sienna Thompson said.
The transaction serves as a generational investment, Florence resident J.C. Miller said.
“I think it’s great that the city is buying that property and looking to restore it,” Miller said. “It’s history. And any time you get a chance to preserve history for those who are to come in the future, it’s a win for everybody. I can’t wait to see how the process is going to unfold.”
The seller received several inquiries about the property, with the primary use concept being conversion to rental property, Hunt said.
“Not a good reuse of the property from our eyes,” Hunt said. “We’re buying it, we’ll close on it probably the second or third week in January, then we’ll immediately start master planning it and coming up with a restoration budget.”
The restoration could occur during the next fiscal year, Hunt said.
“It’s not going to be cheap,” Hunt said. “Anytime you’re restoring something, there’s probably some lead-based paint, some asbestos – so there’s some environmental stuff that we have to do. It depends on how far we want to go with restoring it. It’ll be probably a few hundred thousand dollars, if I had to guess.”
