Okay, maybe the church is full of evil, conniving people. Or, hear me out:

The church was gifted these buildings and probably had plans or ideas for what they could do with them. Due to limited funds or declining congregation sizes, they probably realized they didn’t have the money to support that. However, it’s still property nearby that they wouldn’t be able to purchase down the road if it was in private hands, so they figured it was probably best to just keep the properties until the church had more resources, because the opportunity wouldn’t present itself again. However, the problems grew bigger and as such, got more expensive. Fast forward to today, and the church realizes it’s fruitless to keep this property but due to the condition of the buildings, it likely wouldn’t be beneficial to keep them either. So they decide they could be torn down and converted into something relatively cheap and easy to maintain, aka an outdoor plaza that requires minimal maintenance compared to aging buildings.

I’m not saying every decision the church made was amazing or that they’re strategized particularly well, but I feel as though people here are being very, very presumptuous and just immediately jumping to accuse the church of nefarious activity when it’s likely that they just made poor, if well-intentioned, choices