Couple offers to buy Idora property from Mount Calvary

By Justin WIer

jwier@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Toni Amey, who operates The Idora Park Experience with her husband, Jim, expressed their interest in purchasing the 26-acre former Idora Park property while current owner Mount Calvary Pentecostal Church was meeting with creditors at the U.S. Bankruptcy Court downtown.

Mount Calvary, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month, owns the Idora Park property. The church announced plans for a “City of God” complex on the property in 1985 that would have included a nursing home, counseling center, shopping plaza, retirement home and religious education and worship facilities, according to Vindicator files. The complex never materialized.

“We just have a dream,” Toni Amey said. “And we’re trying to figure out if it’s a livable dream.”

The Ameys envision an Idora Park museum that is open 365 days a year; they open their own collection twice yearly.

Andrew Suhar, the attorney representing Mount Calvary, encouraged Toni Amey to submit an offer but said the church intends to keep the property.

Attorneys representing America’s Christian Credit Union, to which the church owes $1.7 million according to the bankruptcy claim, asked about some items in its filings. One such item was that R.H. Wagner, widow of former Mount Calvary Bishop Norman L. Wagner, is listed as a creditor.

Edward Bolling Sr., chief financial officer of Mount Calvary, told creditors they are paying Wagner as a consultant on pastoral matters. He said he believed the arrangement was $692 per month. She became a consultant after her husband’s death.

Mount Calvary’s assets are the church building at 1812 Oak Hill Ave. which was assessed at $125,000 and the Idora Park property appraised at $52,000. Bolling said the church helped build the Norman L. Wagner Towers at 1840 Market St., which opened as the Calvary Towers in 1989, but they are operated by a separate nonprofit and the church has not provided any funds to the senior-living apartment complex.

In addition to the money owed to America’s Christian Credit Union, the church owes $175,000 in taxes.

The church brought in $62,272.61 and spent $60,016.55 in the month of February.

The church’s main source of income is tithing and offerings from its roughly 500 parishioners. The main expenses are payroll and insurance.

Bolling said that while the church’s 14 employees have taken 10 percent cuts in their salary, the church has not let anyone go recently.