Mision Cristiana Church Collapses Monday Morning: Half Of Building Crumbles

WICKER PARK — Mision Cristina Church, a decades-old brick building that had been poised for redevelopment into two single-family homes and two town homes after several years of vacancy, partially collapsed just after 6 a.m. Monday, according to witnesses and reports. 

About half of the 16,000-square-foot building at 1903-05 W. Schiller St. crumbled. Fire officials on the scene Monday called the incident "a significant collapse."

"We are still looking for the owner of the building," Fire Chief Dan Cunningham said. "There were no permits. There is somebody responsible for this."  

Also damaged in the collapse was "a-two story vacant and empty apartment next door that is part of the church," Cunningham said.

No one seemed to be injured, according to workers at the scene, though fire officials said Monday morning they were "not 100 percent certain no one got hurt."

Jameel James, a construction worker who showed up for work Monday at the church, said he is thankful he was not in the building at the time of the collapse.

"It's a blessing that nobody got hurt," said James, one worker on a team of 15 doing interior demolition and preparing the church to be remodeled.

Jovim Ventura lives across the street and heard the collapse.

"It sounded like an earthquake, and then ambulances and helicopters came," he said. "We didn't know it was this close. My wife and I went outside and saw it had collapsed."

Initially a church built for Chicago's Serbian community, the building is not listed in a city database of architecturally significant properties, though it is located just across the street from Wicker Park's historic park and carries historic significance in the Serbian community.

Radoje Popovich, 69, owns an apartment building across from the church.

"It's sad. Our hope was that the structure was staying. Now it is gone," he said by phone from Colorado while on vacation

Ventura, who lives in Popovich's building, said the loss of the building was a loss for the community.

"The Serbian church wanted to salvage the stained glass windows, but the developers busted a hole in the glass," said Ventura, who called the church "a historical representation of the Serbians who moved into Wicker Park."

Mision Cristiana Family Ministries, which holds weekly church services at Schiller and Evergreen streets and Wicker Park Avenue, "opted out" of being part of Wicker Park's Landmark District when it was created, thus exempting it from certain laws that prohibit renovations or demolition, Tamminga said.

Real estate agent Richard Wolk, who spoke with DNAinfo after putting the church on the market in 2013, said a 2003 appraisal estimated the 16,000-square-foot building to have been built "80 to 100 years ago."