Published: July 15, 2008 02:05 pm            

Congregation rising up in worship | Westmont UM renovations include elevator

BY RUTH RICE

RRICE@TRIBDEM.COM

A local house of worship is making its building more uplifting with the addition of an elevator and redesigned sanctuary.

Westmont United Methodist Church, 1428 Menoher Blvd., is in the midst of a building boom that started at the beginning of May and will last well into the fall.

The Rev. Jay Cook, pastor, said the major part of the project is making the building handicapped accessible by adding an elevator that will make stops at all three levels of the church.

The elevator also will provide handicapped accessibility for children in the Rainbow Room Preschool on the church’s second floor.

“This opens a lot of doors for ministry,” Cook said. “When this church was built, they didn’t think of being handicapped accessible.”

The new addition housing an elevator large enough to move furniture when the need arises will provide more space than Cook and his building committee anticipated.

“We’ll have classrooms on the second floor and more storage space, which we’ve not had in the past,” Cook said.

Onsite supervisor and church member Jim MacMurdo added, “We’ll cut out a new double door entry to the sanctuary so a wheelchair can get through.”

For now, members agree the sanctuary is in chaos as the old is torn out in favor of the new.

Pews have been pushed to the back and the chancel area in the front is being redesigned.

The congregation has been worshipping in the basement for several weeks as plans are carried out to make more room in the sanctuary.

A classroom adjacent to the sanctuary will also serve as overflow area and the present hallway.

In the sanctuary, pews toward the back will remain straight while pews in the front and the overflow area will be placed on a diagonal in line with the chancel area.

“The building committee came up with the idea instead of a new building,” Cook said.

“We’d like to keep as much of the furniture as possible. We remodeled in 1993 – painted, put in new carpeting and refurbished the pews.”

Extra sanctuary space is needed to accommodate the increased attendance realized in the past several years.

Two services are held during the summer, and a children’s choir of 20 to 30 voices needs more room during services.

The whole project is being done by the Alexander Group of Pittsburgh, which works exclusively in church construction.

The company’s architect, Edwin Pope, also is a United Methodist lay minister.

MacMurdo said this project has been in the planning stage for 10 years because other architects wanted to install an elevator using only the space available without building an addition.

“What we’re doing is called a design build,” MacMurdo said.

“We didn’t want them to jump in and destroy the present building. The congregation made the final decision.”

For a project of this magnitude, a building committee had to be formed apart from the trustees, and work had to be approved by the Johnstown District of the Western Pennsylvania Conference of the United Methodist Church, Cook said.

Separate projects not under the Alexander Group’s supervision include a new furnace system and new roof for the 111-year-old church.

        

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