Greater Union Baptist Church on Chicago’s Near West Side would be designated as an official Chicago landmark under a proposal submitted today to City Council.

The building, located at 1956 W. Warren Blvd., was designed in the Richardsonian Romanesque style by Chicago architect William Le Baron Jenney. Originally built in 1886 for a Universalist congregation, the church was purchased in 1928 by a Black congregation that has maintained the building as a spiritual and social home ever since.

The landmark designation would protect the building from significant alteration or demolition.