No Saving the Church, Bal Harbour Shops Is Set to Expand

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

Looks like Bal Harbour's Church by the Sea isn't being saved, even if (and this is a very big if) the Design District and Aventura Mall may have been meddling. On Wednesday, a grand majority of Miami-Dade's historic preservation board voted not to name the 70-year-old church an historic landmark, because "though the work of two prominent Miami architects, [the church] is a melange that doesn't stand out sufficiently."

It's totally cool, since the church is entirely on board. The congregation had already moved out anyway and had started to demolish the building by taking out stained-glass windows, initially without permits. Bal Harbour Shops has an agreement with the church to buy its property and build them a new church elsewhere, as the mall is set for a hefty expansion. It looks like right now there's nothing standing in its way.