Multimillionaire Steve Pagliuca and a second wealthy Bostonian are offering to help Roxbury’s historic Charles Street AME Church pay off debts that pushed it to the brink of foreclosure, the Herald has learned.
Court papers and interviews show that Pagliuca and another unidentified party contacted the church separately in recent weeks after hearing that the 194-year-old congregation could lose its home.
“I think we can have a win for the community and a win for the bank,” Pagliuca, a Bain Capital executive who co-owns the Boston Celtics [team stats], told the Herald yesterday.
Pagliuca, who ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate in 2009, said he’s willing to raise money for the church and provide matching funds of his own. “I just think it’s important for the community,” he said.
Boston-based OneUnited Bank began foreclosure proceedings against the church recently after Charles Street failed to pay off a $1.1 million “balloon” mortgage.
OneUnited — the nation’s largest black-owned bank — had planned to seize the church through a foreclosure auction yesterday, but Charles Street blocked that move by filing for bankruptcy Tuesday.
The two sides squared off in U.S. Bankruptcy Court yesterday. Judge Frank Bailey vowed to resolve the case quickly.
OneUnited and the church have been feuding since 2010, when the bank sued over a $3.6 million construction loan that Charles Street took out to build a community center.
OneUnited cut off funding in 2009, leaving the project unfinished and the church unable to raise money to repay the loan.
Charles Street says the lawsuit also made it impossible to refinance the church proper when the balloon loan came due.
In its bankruptcy filing, the congregation said two “major benefactors” recently offered to help, but couldn’t do so as long as OneUnited threatened foreclosure.
The church declined to identify the donors, but Pagliuca confirmed that he is one of them. The millionaire said he doesn’t know who the other person is.
Pagliuca has been trying to help Charles Street since 2010, originally proposing to buy the church’s construction loan from OneUnited at a discount.