“If taxes have not been paid for at least seven years, the property will be transferred to the state,” said Daniel Coxworth, director of development services for Cochise County.

Coxworth said he has about $600,000 in unpaid taxes.

“Once the state takes ownership, the tax is written off, so it’s basically wiped out,” he added.

Still, it was an expensive undertaking for the county, and nearly $50,000 had to be spent on asbestos restoration cleanup of two buildings on the site before demolition. Additional asbestos reduction—the asbestos fibers used in building materials in the 1950s are washed, placed in sealed bags, placed in locked bins, and transported to the Casa Grande landfill, which accepts asbestos—is also removed from the dome before demolition. takes place in the cathedral.

Coxworth said demolition of the cathedral would cost about $50,000. April 21 is the last day the county will accept demolition bids. Demolition could begin in May or June.

“For about a year, the county has been clearing the rear and outbuildings on the property, including the auto repair building and another outbuilding. It was removed. It was dumped in the mountains,” said Coxworth. “This demolition would be too expensive for an individual, so we saw it as an opportunity for the county to clean up this property and put it up for auction. It will be decomposed.

“It’s a dilapidated and dangerous structure that has been an eyesore for us for some time. It needs to be removed.”

Coxworth said the property’s auction could take place later this year, in 2024, or possibly the following year.

Joan Wilson, a National Realtor who tracks real estate trends in Cochise County and writes the Herald/Review’s monthly column, “The Housing Problem,” said if the property were to go public today, it could have a septic tank and a maximum He said it could be $1 million. Any other issues that the site may have.

“At auction, it’s obviously going to be cheaper,” she said. “It’s a very nice property with a lot of history and potential, and it’s likely to attract a lot of interest.”

The property’s history alone was staggering, including a nasty lawsuit with the Internal Revenue Service regarding the church’s exempt status.

It was built in 1958 by AA Allen, a Pentecostal evangelist and faith healer. Allen joined the Healing Voices movement after being gifted his 1,280-acre land by Palominas resident Urban his Leinendecker. The property became a small empire at Allen’s ministry headquarters.

In addition to Bible College, there were dormitories and classrooms, a domed church, an administrative building, a huge warehouse, and even a residential neighborhood called the Miracle Valley Estate. The headquarters was a source of income with a publishing and printing plant, a four-press gramophone record plant, and the Miracle Valley Fellowship, which served as a pastoral fellowship with approximately 10,000 pastors as members.

Before Allen died in 1970 (he is buried on the grounds near Bible College), he became entangled with the IRS, who canceled his church exemption status and questioned whether AA Allen Revivals Inc. was really a church. I doubted.

After a trial three years later, the U.S. Tax Court ruled that the IRS was wrong, granting Allen immunity in 1965.

But the IRS still had one last word. The association “completely misunderstood” the court’s opinion, saying the IRS was not prohibited from “challenging the association’s right to immunity or its status as a church.”

It lays the groundwork for future red flags for subsequent owners of the property when it comes to trying to establish the church’s exempt status and its turmoil surrounding a $600,000 property tax default. may have built.

After Allen died, many religious groups, including the Don Stewart Evangelical Society, purchased the property, which also clashed with the IRS over the same exception status. Following his IRS investigation into mail fraud over his high salary and his $8 million annual salary, the IRS revoked Stewart’s tax exempt status in 1997, citing “unauthorized benefits” to the Stewart family. rice field.

Stewart later leased the property to Hispanic Assemblies for $1 a year in a 20-year lease that opened the Spanish-speaking Southern Arizona Bible College.

In the late 1970s, the Christ Miracle Healing Center and Church operated from a fragmented site on the north side of Route 92 across from the Bible Church and was led by Allen follower Francis Thomas and his son. attended by about 300 black members from Chicago. Following months of tense race relations in 1982, the “Miracle Valley Shootout” erupted across a highway into a shootout with hundreds of rounds of ammunition, killing two people and disarming the FBI. led to an investigation.

Miracle Valley then closed after a bankruptcy hearing and a fire destroyed the administration building and warehouses of Southern Arizona Bible College.

Eventually, Spain’s Assemblies of God took over the campus on a 20-year lease, but closed Bible College in 1995 and put the campus up for sale.

Again, Bible College, this time acquired by Harter Ministries in 1999 and renamed Miracle Valley Bible College and Seminary, taught classical Pentecostal theology. Ten years later, a Phoenix-based mortgage company foreclosed on the property.

The ministry continued to come to the land even though all the faith-based groups had changed hands.

In 2011, Pentecostal missionaries Gilles and Diane Langevin of Quebec paid a $30,000 down payment towards their $600,000 property tax arrears from Arizona to purchase it from Arizona and give it to God. to the area and claimed to have planned to restore it. They called their activity the Miracle Valley Arizona Ministry, but they left before paying the balance.

The eventual owners, Lewis and Rose Bettencourt, moved to the property in 2014 and renamed it Miracle Valley Today with the intent of revitalizing and building the community. They told Herald/Review in 2016 that he planned to build a retreat center for couples, a youth and family camp, a location for revival meetings, and accommodations for a Bible training center. Cafe and small car service facility.

“The inspiration here was the voice of God telling me to move forward,” Lewis Bettencourt told Herald/Review.

Betancourt’s plan never came to fruition

Coxworth said he repaired the residence on the property where Betencourt lived for several years. But after Coxworth explained why the site had been ceded to the state under county control, and because of ongoing asbestos restoration, upcoming demolition, and eventual auction, he had to , he recently left the place.