Felician Sisters aim to raise $4 million for restoration work
The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Felix in Cheektowaga, trying to offset the costs of a green renovation and restoration of its landmark provincial house, has embarked on a campaign to raise $4 million.
The Felician nuns are calling the capital campaign “The Compassionate Presence of Christ.”
More than 100 sisters, many of them retired, live in the house at Doat Street and Pine Ridge Road on the Buffalo border.
The building, erected in 1929 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, includes offices, independent living units and an infirmary.
The congregation of 170 women religious spent $15 million on the environmentally friendly renovation, which features an advanced geothermal system that uses water from 400 feet below ground to heat and cool about 195,000 square feet on six floors.
The project is expected to become a model for Leadership Energy and Environmental Design renovation construction in Western New York.
The building still needs roof repairs and repointing work, and the sisters have had to take out loans. The money being raised will help repay the loans.
The renovation project received a 2009 Preservation Buffalo Niagara Award for “exemplary historic preservation efforts.”
“Times have seen many local religious orders relocate to suburban settings away from their roots and it was incredibly important to us to stay in the house we built many years ago, in the community where we minister,” said Sister Mary Lorianne Tylczynski, provincial minister.
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