Demolition Begins at Roseville's Sacred Heart Church Site for New Sheetz Store

Machinery has moved onto the grounds of the former Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Roseville, where a school building has already come down and crews are now working through the main church structure to clear the site for a new Sheetz gas station and convenience store.

Sheetz said demolition started Aug. 21, after crews removed hazardous materials from several buildings on the property along Utica Road near Gratiot Avenue. As of the first week of September, the church building itself was still standing, with removal work continuing there alongside the rest of the property. The company said the full demolition process should take six to eight weeks.

Sacred Heart Catholic Church closed in 2017 and has sat vacant since. It is the latest in a string of Catholic parishes across Metro Detroit shuttered in recent decades as the Archdiocese of Detroit consolidated congregations facing shrinking membership and rising maintenance costs.

Sheetz plans to build an approximately 6,100-square-foot store on the site, with 14 fueling positions, indoor and outdoor seating, and touchscreen kiosks for ordering food and what the company calls "crafted beverages." Construction is expected to start this fall, and Sheetz is targeting a 2027 opening for the Roseville location, though it has not set an exact date.

"From day one, our priority has been doing this the right way, safely and thoroughly," said Nicholas Ruffner, public affairs manager at Sheetz, in a company statement. "Seeing demolition underway is an exciting milestone, and we're looking forward to every step ahead."

The demolition follows months of legal challenges. Roseville artist Edward "Gonzo" Stross sued in an attempt to block the sale of the church property and stop the demolition, but the effort failed in court.

A separate legal dispute involved Harvest Time Christian Fellowship, a Warren church whose pastor, Curtiss Ostosh, said his congregation had signed a real estate purchase agreement for the Sacred Heart property with Mooney Real Estate Holdings, an entity tied to the Archdiocese of Detroit, back in 2021. Ostosh said Harvest Time sued last year, arguing that agreement remained valid even after the archdiocese moved to sell the property to Sheetz instead. Ostosh said his church reached a confidential settlement with another archdiocese entity earlier this summer and agreed to drop the lawsuit, clearing the last major legal obstacle to the sale.

Other vacant Catholic church properties in Macomb County have also been sold for commercial redevelopment as parishes close and the archdiocese looks to offload buildings it can no longer maintain. Sheetz, which is expanding into Michigan from its Pennsylvania base, has targeted large corner lots along busy roads such as Gratiot Avenue for new locations.

For now, the Sacred Heart site remains an active demolition zone. Once the church building comes down along with the rest of the structures on the property, Sheetz said grading and construction on the new store will follow, with the company aiming to have the location open sometime in 2027.