Owners of old downtown Joliet church look to open it as wedding, event venue

The scaffolding seen in the skyline of downtown Joliet signals that the long-planned reuse of St. Mary Carmelite Church is getting done.

Joseph and Jennifer Matise, a married couple already in the event business, earlier this year became the fourth owners of the 19th-century limestone church since it was acquired by a private developer from the Diocese of Joliet in 2011. They are the first with an open timetable for putting the building back into use.

Previous owners at times have been difficult to reach and seldom gave updates on what they were doing.

The Matises are accessible. They have a website providing a look into their plans. They’ve even put their name on the building.

They have dubbed the old church at 113 N. Ottawa St. The Matise and plan to reopen it as an event venue in August 2024.

The Matises invite people to follow their progress at www.thematise.com.

“We’re going to post updates during the renovation,” Jennifer said. “The plan is to continue to keep people updated so they can follow along.”

The public is interested, they said.

“People are walking by and seeing the construction,” Joseph said. “They have fond memories of the church.”

What may be most important is that they are reroofing the steeple.

“The roof was especially something to be concerned about,” said Richard Kavanagh, an attorney who has had an office in the building next door since 1992 and moved in not long after the last Mass was celebrated at St. Mary Carmelite.

Kavanagh objected when plans were first made to save the church from demolition, pointing to the hazard posed by the clay tiles that had begun to fall from the roof and steeple.

“If you had 40 or 50 mph gusts of wind, you’d see tiles on the sidewalk and on the street,” he said.

Still a skeptic that the church can be converted to a profitable enterprise, Kavanagh said he wishes the Matises well and noted that the roof work is progress.

“Getting that roof repaired is something that should have been done,” he said.

Another lawyer skeptical of the Matise couple’s plans but taking notice of the roof repairs is Dan Kallan, a Joliet attorney who formerly owned an Ottawa Street building a block from the church. Kallan at a City Council meeting two years ago asked whether anything was being done with the church by a previous owner.

“I applaud them for taking the chance,” Kallan said of the Matises. “It wouldn’t be my money I would put into it. But we’ll see how it comes out.”

Kallan has a fond connection to St. Mary Carmelite Church.

“My mother and father were married in the church,” he said. “Nine months later, I was baptized in that church.”

The Matises appear to have enough confidence to overcome skeptics, and they have practical experience along with optimism.

Joseph is the superintendent for Ridgeland School District 122 in Oak Lawn. He also is the vocalist for The Walk-ins, a band and event business that has handled 800 weddings in the past 15 years.

Jennifer is a retired financial adviser.

Filotto Roofing of Crest Hill “is doing an excellent job” on the roof, and the steeple is proving to be worth saving, Joseph said.

“It’s in great shape,” he said. “They don’t build them like that anymore.”

Their plans for The Matise as an event venue are attracting attention.

“We’ve started to get a lot of people who are interested,” Jennifer said.

The Joliet City Center Partnership, which promotes downtown business, has shown confidence in the Matises. The CCP provided a $100,000 grant for the project, which Executive Director Priscilla Cordero called “a game-changer” for Ottawa Street.

The Matises are making “a substantial investment in downtown,” Cordero said. They have been out in the community speaking on their plans. The work on the roof puts the project in the public eye.

“People are definitely noticing and definitely excited about the project,” Cordero said.