St. Andrew's Episcopal Church Addition Completed
August 2009
Work was officially completed on our addition to St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on July 17, 2009. This marks the completion of more than eight years of work on the project. Initial contact with members of the church began sometime prior to November 2001. The leadership of the church had wanted for some time to expand. The church building began construction in 1908 with a donation from an Augustus DuPont that provided the funds for half of the building. The other half was not raised so the building was stopped where money ran out and a temporary chancel added to the unfinished end of the nave. That is how the church remained for more than 90 years when the congregation began to think about the 100 year anniversary of the building and plans for an addition began in earnest.
A first attempt to plan an addition failed due to insufficient funds and at about that time the church approached me to see if we could add to the building in the original style. We did not actually begin work on a design right away because an examination of the building revealed many deficiencies in the exterior envelope that needed attention before we could address expansion. A first building committee was led by Rick Larson and Mother Connie and a number of other members of the church including Cathy Price, Betty Luce and Judie James. After an initial scheme was developed in 2004 we had a hiatus while the mortar and roof of the existing building were restored with the help of several grants from Historic Denver and from the Colorado Historic Preservation Fund and under the leadership of Cyn Croasdaile.
At about this time we were working to achieve the go ahead on our traditional addition design from the Denver Landmark’s commission and the Diocesan Council a process that took almost a year. We were assisted ably in that effort by various members of the congregation including Cyn Croasdaile, Betty Luce and Judie James as well as Everett Shigetta then LDC staff member assigned to our project who was always kind and courteous and helpful.
Finally we began again in October of 2006 with Roger Kilgore as Building Committee Chair on design and on fund raising for the current project. After a brief campaign the fund raising goal was reached and design and working drawings were completed with Ethan Anthony as Project Architect and Kevin Hogan, Project Manager and other team members including David Hulihan, Brian Viens and Skip Prescott. Structural Engineer for the project was Stan Neujahr of Neujahr and Gorman in Denver and mechanical engineering was provided by MEP Engineering. Bids were taken and the project awarded to Himmelman Construction Company as the General Contractor in August 2008. The building was largely completed in about ten months of construction ably led for Himmelman by Brian Himmelman the Project Manager and Marty Galley.
Now that construction is complete the church has an additional 50 seats and a beautiful new Chancel with a large rose window. It is a lovely light filled space which showcases the gold and multicolor reredos behind the altar. Acoustics are as good or better than before complementing St. Andrew’s vibrant musical program. The project has drawn uniformly rave reviews from the congregation.