A developer wants to tear down the shuttered St. James Catholic Church on Grand Rapids's near west side to make way for a $55 million apartment project, according to a new report. The church at 733 Bridge St. NW has sat empty since the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids closed the parish in 2022, and now it could be razed entirely to clear the site for new housing.
The demolition plan was first reported by Crain's Grand Rapids Business, which identified the building as a longtime neighborhood landmark founded by the city's early Irish immigrants. The outlet described the building as 150 years old. WOODTV reports that the church's cornerstone was laid in July 1870 and its first Mass was held in 1872, dates broadly consistent with that age.
Why the Parish Closed in the First Place
St. James's path to this moment began back in 2022, when the Catholic Diocese of Grand Rapids closed the parish for good. In a statement explaining the decision, the diocese cited a familiar set of pressures facing older urban parishes: a declining population in the area that multiple parishes drew from, a shortage of priests to assign to individual churches, and needed repairs that simply could not be financed.
The church's pastor echoed those concerns at the time, according to the same WOODTV report, attributing the closure to declining numbers of Catholics and an aging congregation while also pointing to the cost of maintaining the aging buildings. The outlet's reporting noted that those still committed to the parish were primarily elderly. St. James held its final Mass on June 7, 2022, and the property became available for purchase the very next day, per that report.
A Pattern Playing Out Across Grand Rapids
St. James would hardly be the first Grand Rapids church to face the wrecking ball or the renovation crew as congregations shrink and developers eye prime, centrally located parcels. Crain's Grand Rapids Business has also reported that a former church at 200 Madison Ave. SE is being redeveloped into an affordable housing complex with 22 apartments, preserving the structure rather than demolishing it.
Elsewhere in the city, a different former Saint James — this one a Lutheran church at Knapp Street and Sinclair Avenue NE — was converted into what's now known as Cardinal Point Apartments, developed by 111 Halo LLC, WOODTV reported. Developers on that project said it actually would have been cheaper to bulldoze and build new, but they chose to preserve a piece of the neighborhood instead, leaning on tax breaks from the city and state to make the math work.
Not every project along the corridor involves an old church at all. Talbot Development has been building a five-story, 148-unit apartment building at the former Duthler's Family Foods site in the heart of the Bridge Street commercial corridor, according to MLive, underscoring just how much new housing activity is already concentrated in that stretch of the city.
The Bigger Housing Squeeze
The push to add apartments on the St. James site comes as Grand Rapids grapples with a housing shortfall across the board. A city housing plan excerpt points to the 2025 Kent County Housing Needs Assessment by Bowen National Research, which found the area needs thousands more rental and for-sale units by the end of 2029 to meet demand.
The fate awaiting St. James also reflects a broader trend playing out well beyond Grand Rapids. Researchers at the United Church of Christ's Center for Analytics, Research & Development, and Data have estimated that somewhere between 75 and 150 houses of worship close every week nationwide, according to WOODTV's reporting — leaving developers, congregations and preservationists to repeatedly wrestle with what comes next for buildings once considered consecrated ground.
