On Wednesday
evening, Oct 8, we had a presentation by the architects we had selected to
assist us on our church and rectory exterior renovation project. Sixth River
Architects presented three different schemes to get our creative juices
flowing. They solicited feedback and input from the just over 100 parishioners
who attended, in order to begin moving forward to an concrete proposal. You can
view these three schemes, though not the whole “fly through” presentation, on
the parish website at www.staustin.org/renovation. There are also prints posted
in the back of the church and in Hecker Hall.
We are hoping to
achieve several goals in this renovation project. FIRST of course is to make
our campus safe. That is our first concern and responsibility. If this were our
ONLY concern, then a simple solution would be to erect safety barriers and
covers and metal awnings and just live with that for the next 20 years. It
would, of course, be pretty ugly and unattractive, but it would be faster and a
whole lot cheaper.
But we are using
this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to also address some mission issues. We
have very little presence on Guadalupe Street. If we were trying to camouflage
the church, we would win an award. We have repeatedly had the situation of
visitors who come here for weddings or funerals or concerts who tell us that
they have driven up and down Guadalupe Street for years and never knew a church
was here. One of the members of our choir tells how she drove by the church
three times while actually looking for it before she found it. A member of our
Finance Council went to UT for four years, had her hair done just down the
block, and never knew there was a church here. For the sake of the mission that
we have to be an evangelizing parish, we need a much greater sense of presence,
welcoming, and impact on the Drag. That is what these three architectural
schemes attempt to do.
In addition, we
have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address the grey, mottled appearance due
to mold growing in the limestone on the church and rectory. It is, quite
frankly, very unattractive. Our house of worship should be beautiful and
welcoming and inspiring. If you stand across the street in front of the Dobie
Mall, and examine our façade critically, you can see it is in need of a
face-lift. We now have the opportunity to do that.
Other goals we
have and may be able to accomplish in this renovation project are:
§ Increase number
of bathrooms and make (some at least) ADA compliant.
§ Enhance and
beautify route from our garage to the front entrance of the church making it
more inviting and easier to find the way into church.
§ Repurpose the
old office section of the rectory ground floor for Children’s Liturgy of the
Word and other parish uses.
§ Perhaps install
solar panels on the garage or elsewhere to reduce our utility costs.
§ Upgrade the
rectory kitchen, which is in need of some TLC.
Of course this
will all take money. We will be launching a capital campaign to help us reduce
our debt and to finance this renovation project. You will hear more about that
in the next couple of months.
Meanwhile if you
have any comments, suggestions or questions about the three architectural
schemes, I highly encourage you to seek out one of the parishioners who
attended the presentation on October 8. It is pretty hard to understand the
schemes from the pictures alone, without the presentation. Some of the
information is on the parish website as well. After finding out about it, your
input and suggestions are welcome, and may be emailed to PropertyCommittee@StAustin.org.
This
is an exciting as well as challenging time for our parish. I hope that you will
be a part of it.
God Bless,
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