I'm about as anti-NIMBY as it gets, but this is complete horse shit. those buildings would go for hundreds of thousands of dollars each and a developer would make them structurally sound and sell or rent them, preserving the nicer than average architecture. cutting out a bunch of buildings from the center of a block and putting ugly concrete block along the occupied ones will be a net negative to everyone.

how about the church auctions them off. if nobody bids on them, they can tear them down.