Actor Matt Damon recently joined the fight to save a historic 12-member church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City from being sold to developers who want to destroy it to make way for a $30 million luxury condominium.

Damon’s effort to save the West Park Presbyterian Church, located at 165 W. 86thh Street, will include a performance of the play “This Is Our Youth” for The Center at West Park, a not-for-profit community performing arts center housed in the Romanesque Revival building. According to The New York Times, the church was designated as a New York City landmark in 2010 against the congregation’s wishes.

However, church leaders signed a binding contract in 2022 with the condominium’s developers due to a $2 million repair bill they couldn’t afford. They have also filed a hardship application seeking to de-landmark and demolish the building to make way for the condominium, which will also include worship space for the church. The Landmarks Preservation Commission is currently evaluating the church’s hardship application.

At a public meeting on Oct. 31, the LPC reviewed an independent analysis they commissioned, and some commissioners suggested alternative uses for the building, such as an event venue or daycare center. While the LPC’s hardship statute requires a reasonable return of six percent on the investment needed to repair the church, it was noted that if a third party owns the building, it would not be able to earn that reasonable return.

Marsha Flowers, ruling elder of the West Park Presbyterian Church and a founding board member of the Center at West Park, said in a statement to The Christian Post, “As an elder of the church and a founding member of the Center at West Park, I’m also frustrated with the difficult position we find ourselves in today. We helped create the Center in 2017 to celebrate the arts while fundraising for repairs to the building, but the funds never came through despite more than a decade of promises and commitments from local leaders. Our congregation is now focused on creating a new space for worship and the arts, and we hope to use our proceeds to help other churches meet their mission and avoid circumstances like ours.”

Damon adds to a growing list of high-profile celebrities who have already thrown their star-power behind the effort to save the building, such as actors Mark Ruffalo and Wendell Pierce, comedian Amy Schumer, as well as rapper and actor Common, the Times said. Kenneth Lonergan, who wrote “This Is Our Youth,” told The New York Times that he asked Damon to join the cast, which also includes Missy Yager and Ruffalo, because Josh Hamilton, who appeared in the original off-Broadway production, was unavailable.

Lonergan said, “I explained the situation to him, and immediately he said, ‘I’m in,’ which is what I thought he would say if he was available and as a matter of fact, he had an apartment one block away from the church for a year or two, maybe. This is going back a ways.” Lonergan told The Times that Damon, who already knows the play because he appeared in a London production for two months in 2002, wants to “keep what’s special about the neighborhood special.”