A former church building that is now a school in Sunnyslope received historic preservation status from the city of Phoenix this week.
Franklin Phonetic Primary School, at the southeast corner of Second Street and Hatcher Road, opened in 2014, but the site’s history goes back almost a century. It was the site of the Desert Mission Church built in 1927 and also ran a food and clothing bank. Fires destroyed the main chapel and several other structures in 1942, but the church was rebuilt and renamed Sunnyslope Presbyterian Church in 1949.
“It means so much to everybody in Sunnyslope. It was where they got married, where they did their first baptism. It has so many memories to people,” said Sunnyslope Historical Society President Julia Taggart at Wednesday’s Phoenix City Council meeting.
