Notre Dame's Fitzgerald Institute for Real Estate (FIRE)
experts help Church leaders consider real estate options with a forward-thinking focus on property and mission. The Church Properties Initiative (CPI) began last year taking on as one of it's early research efforts a case study of our St. Austin development project. 

This year, in early November, FIRE hosted a conference called “The Future of Church Property” that brought together industry leaders from all over the world, including parish members and development experts from our project. 
 

The Catholic Church is the largest nongovernmental property owner in the world. In some places, the challenge is that the Church has more property than it can use, whereas in other areas, especially those with growing Latino populations, is the need to make more effective use of under-utilized churches, schools, outreach facilities, and land.

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Our challenge: The cost to maintain our 50-year-old school, ministry, and rectory buildings would soon overwhelm our financial resources. Updates or reconstruction of the old buildings would cost more than our urban parish could afford.

Our assets: Prime real estate near an expanding major university; a community of willing dreamers with a clear mission to bring God's word to our time and this place. 

Our creative solution: A 99-year land-lease deal where developers are building a tall residential building for Texas students on parish land. The 29-story tower will include a new parish rectory and gym, plus proceeds to construct new school and ministry buildings, and ongoing funds to maintain all of it. The tower will also include 200 affordable housing beds that will help low-income college students save a total of about $2 million per year.