Options for Expansion of Facilities

Basic Assumptions

Underlying the following discussion is the basic assumption that our buildings exist to support our parish programs. Our buildings are public statements about who we are and what we do. People establish immediate impressions about us when they enter our church, chapel or parish house. Like it or not, our facilities are judged against those of other churches in the community. It is time to reconsider what we are doing and what we ought to be doing in regard to our parish programs and activities (see the reports of the program and worship subcommittees) and then ask how our buildings support or hinder those goals. We end our report with a recommendation about the steps to be taken by our parish.

Definitions

As our committee discussed facility design changes, it quickly became evident that many among our group were confused about names. To be certain that everyone understands the terms in this report, we offer the following glossary:

Chapel - Our first building built in 1848 of brick with lime wash coating.

Church - The pink granite building completed in 1925. It encompasses several areas with distinct names.

Nave - Where the congregation pews are located

Transepts - Side congregation seating areas at the front of the Nave where the church widens

Chancel - Where choir pews are located

Sanctuary - Area behind the rail where the altar is located

Parish House - The red brick structure linking the church and chapel. It contains classrooms, offices, parlor and dining room. It is composed of two buildings:

Battle Building - Built in 1925, the interior features plaster walls and wooden floors that creak.

Yates Wing - An addition to the Battle Building completed in 1958. The interior features concrete block walls and silent concrete floors.

Fellowship Hall - A large multi-purpose space where our congregation can gather for meetings, social events, or meals. Our current dining room functions to a limited degree in this capacity.

Major Needs Delineated

Based upon findings of the Space Use Study Committee, the Parish Survey and many informal discussions with congregation ministry groups, the Planning Committee established the following areas needing attention:

• Our church seating capacity is too small for major services. We often have parishioners standing along the walls
• The dining room is inadequate to serve as a fellowship hall for our parish. We need room for 300 to stand at receptions, 250 seated in chairs at meetings and 200 at tables for dinner or conferences. It is unattractive, the ceiling is too low, there is poor lighting, and we have large pillars filling the center of the space.
• Office space is inadequate for our current staff. The parish house was built at a time when we had one priest and a single secretary. The rudimentary offices carved from former classrooms to house our existing staff are small and dispersed throughout the building. Office operations are inefficient because of this arrangement. Parish program growth will be inhibited because we have no additional space available to house potential future staff envisioned to provide service and support in areas such as:

Elder Minister

Youth Minister

Volunteer Program Coordinator

Communications Support

Development/Stewardship Leader

Social Work ... and others

• The ambience of our parish house is far below the quality expected of a leadership organization. We aspire to an air of gracious welcome, but offer threadbare institutional formality. We need comfortable seating areas resembling our parlor. We need better acoustic separation between our meeting areas. Pleasant nooks for private conversation are notably lacking. Those who have not recently toured the facilities of our companion churches in town are probably not aware of the degree to which we have fallen behind our peers. Visitors to our parish are struck by the difference.
• Our building security reflects our small-town past, not tomorrow's urban reality. We are located in a growing downtown environment. Personal safety, theft, and vandalism are ongoing issues for building maintenance. We need a single monitored entrance during the week for our entire facility including the entrance to our chapel. During evening and weekend hours, we should offer limited access to select areas without leaving our entire building open.
• Our classrooms and meeting areas are inadequate. We require a greater choice of room size and furnishings. Rooms for adult education on Sunday are inadequate. Acoustic separation of our teaching spaces is poor. We need dedicated space for adults with young children. Our pre-school and Sunday-school need separate storage areas. A children's toilet room for use by both schools would be ideal. Our play area needs a rubber surface to enhance child safety, child cleanliness, and eliminate the constant influx of sand that is damaging our floors and carpets.
• Our campus ministry space needs expansion with multi-purpose flexibility for worship, fellowship and meals.
• The growth of our congregation and increasing sophistication of our parish volunteer programs will place even greater demands on our buildings in the years ahead.

Constraints to consider in addressing our needs

Our property is small. We cannot purchase adjacent land for expansion. There is no way we can expand on-site parking. The only open space available for development is our playground and the adjacent portion of our parking lot. Any development on our site will be subject to Historic District limitations and review.

The Planning Committee concluded that relocating our congregation to a new larger and more modern site outside of the downtown area with ample parking is not an option. Unlike some churches in our area, our identity is closely linked to our historic location and buildings. We evolved from a campus ministry, and we must remain in our current location if we hope to continue our tradition of service to the University community.

The Planning Committee determined that downtown property acquisition in nearby areas is not desirable at this time. Relocating office staff to sites around town would disperse the nucleus of our operation. Cohesive staff function mandates a single office location. Teamwork would be more difficult to achieve. Efforts to raze community structures to create additional parking would generate opposition from the Historic District. Oversight of the properties would tax our maintenance staff. Whatever parking spaces could be created by this process would not adjoin our church property thus walking several blocks would still be required. The purchase and maintenance of properties would consume resources that otherwise could be devoted to parish programs.

In considering our need for additional worship space to accommodate larger congregation size, the Planning Committee quickly set aside any consideration of chapel expansion. This historic structure should remain untouched except for ongoing infrastructure upgrades to lighting, heat, sound, and media.

Serious attention was devoted to analyzing church expansion options. Multiple novel ideas surfaced including the following

• Excavation of a crypt under the nave would provide a large fellowship hall adjacent to the church and parish house. Unfortunately, such excavation would threaten the integrity of church walls and would be extremely costly. Our offices, education resources, and parish house ambience would not improve with this construction.
• We considered creating a fellowship hall by building an entire new floor for our church nave, chancel and sanctuary at a higher level above the existing floor between the upper and lower windows of our nave. In the process, we would gain a large fellowship hall in close proximity to the church with attractive architectural detailing. Disadvantages would include the destruction of architectural integrity of our main sanctuary by reducing the distance from floor to ceiling of our nave, chancel, and sanctuary. The row of lower windows throughout the nave would no longer be visible. Substantial practical and architectural difficulties with ingress and egress to the newly raised level would need to be resolved at every entrance with stairways and elevators for handicap access. Cost would be prohibitive.
• We discussed the potential increase in seating within the church that would accrue by building a balcony. Such a structure was included in the original drawings of our church. Current building codes would require an elevator in addition to a stairway to reach the space. An engineering study would be required to determine feasibility of alterations to the tower room where many are skeptical that the balcony stairwell, as originally drawn, could be fitted. Advantages to a balcony include the additional seating it would provide. Disadvantages, depending upon the results of an engineering study, would include some compromise of the architectural integrity of the exterior and/or interior of the church and possible high cost.
• An analysis of seating in the church led to discussion of removing the pews and substituting cathedral chairs. Advantages of chairs include the enhanced flexibility for multiple seating arrangements to satisfy requirements of various services. Disadvantages include the loss of the current pews as an important architectural element with a relatively small gain, if any, in seating capacity. Some individuals maintain that pews permit tight seating for special events that individual cathedral chairs simply would not allow.
• Thought was given to enlarging the church by extending the nave north towards Franklin Street. Advantages include additional seating for a larger congregation which would be especially important for traditionally over-crowed services such as Christmas and Easter. Disadvantages include the high anticipated cost and the lack of resolution of our need for a large fellowship hall. We also know there would be severe challenges in achieving architectural integrity for any building extension since the pink granite, limestone, windows, woodwork, and slate flooring would be exceedingly difficult if not impossible to match.
• Expansion of the transepts was analyzed. The Committee learned that the east transept sits exactly on our property line and cannot be extended one inch. Our west transept could be extended into the courtyard. However, all of the architectural integrity problems listed above for a nave extension would arise in this design as well. The additional congregation seating would not have a view of the altar. We also would lose the use of a major portion of our courtyard.
• We could create a fellowship hall in the current courtyard. This could be largely of glass with walls leaving a narrow corridor of exterior space between the existing church and chapel walls. The roof could be gabled with operable shades to protect from sunlight. Advantages for this structure include an architecturally exciting, moderately sized fellowship hall in close proximity to the church and chapel with views of both. Disadvantages to this plan include the loss of our existing courtyard, possible noise concerns since the new hall would be close to both church and chapel. The projected modest size of the hall would not fully meet the needs of our congregation, the distance from kitchen would make meal service difficult, and a glass design would possibly be energy inefficient.

The committee considered options for a new fellowship hall through modification of our existing structures. The following option emerged from the discussions:

Recommendations of the Facility Subcommittee

Having debated these subjects for over a year, and discussed them at length with many parishioners, the Facility Subcommittee offers the following recommendations:

• Make no structural changes to the chapel or church beyond infrastructure upgrades required for daily use.
• Accommodate growth in demand for seating in our worship services by scheduling more services in our chapel and church, including simultaneous services. No construction costs will be required for this solution and it offers the opportunity for differing service formats and degrees of formality while retaining our commitment to Episcopal traditions.
• With any expansion of our facilities, parking will continue to be limited to the amount currently available or less if we expand our parish house. Changes in the Morehead lot have reduced the number of spaces available and curtailed the ability to circle around the parking lot. No feasible expansion plans allow for additional church parking. As a downtown parish, we have no choice but to accept the parking limitations that most city parishes face. The Committee recommends working with other downtown churches, the University, and town government to enhance parking options.
• Select one of the following strategies to address our need for a Fellowship Hall and improved offices for support staff.

The Parish House Addition Strategy: Create an attractive fellowship hall with a cathedral ceiling in a new two story building on the site of our current playground. The first floor would be the basement level and could house offices or an expanded child-care center. The playground could be relocated to a newly constructed fourth floor open roof of the Yates Wing as commonly found in a 'city' playground. An elevator and additional stair access would be required to reach the relocated playground; however, a safe and inviting environment could be accomplished as is common atop many urban buildings. The new fellowship hall would be accessible from the church or chapel via a new hallway built through the existing dining room, which in turn could become a large meeting room. The existing kitchen and dish washroom would be converted to another use, possibly clergy vesting or storage. A new kitchen would be constructed adjoining the new fellowship hall. The new building would likely be constructed with an outdoor corridor on its north side next to the Battle Building. To fully realize the size required for a large hall we will likely need to extend the new building west into the existing parking lot, possibly eliminating six parking spaces. An architectural and engineering study would be required to determine the feasibility of attaching a new building to the Battle Building and/or Yates wing and to study how new roof lines would integrate with the existing buildings. Advantages projected for this strategy include the practical means by which we gain a grand fellowship hall with the high ceiling that is an important consideration for a large room. We also gain basement space for enhanced offices for a child-care center in close proximity. Disadvantages for this strategy involve the loss of the current playground close to the fellowship hall, the loss of parking spaces, and the fact that the basement-level rooms might have little or no natural light. This approach also leaves the Battle Building and Yates Wing essentially unchanged with existing limitations in ambiance, infrastructure, and security. Hallways would become more complex.

The Parish Hall Replacement Strategy: This approach involves completely razing both the Battle and Yates buildings and replacing them with an entirely new parish house. This would enable us to achieve an entirely new vision of our parish ministry. Architectural integration with the church and chapel would be much more appealing. By excavating a full basement, we could achieve a three-story structure in most of the space and a full four stories in the eastern corner near the Arboretum. We could resolve our office, education, fellowship hall and security issues. We would assure a pleasant ambiance and offer appropriate support for our parish ministry. Our image would become one of a 21st century parish offering innovative programs that serve our congregation and community.

Steps to undertake

Two feasibility studies are required before we can finalize plans. First, we need to assess the capability of our parish to support any new construction. Second, we need to engage an architect to assess the feasibility of the addition strategy and the replacement strategy for our buildings. The results of the two feasibility studies will guide our decision process.

While the feasibility studies are under way, no major renovations should be made to our parish house beyond what is needed to sustain daily operation.

In 'blue-skying' these various possibilities for expanded space, the committee acknowledged that there comes a point at which we are forced to accept the limitations of our location. Eventually we must turn our energies away from expanding our physical plant and towards expanding God's kingdom both within our confines and beyond our boundaries.