Big plans for New Lowell United Church
With the province’s 2025 accessibility deadline for public buildings in mind, members of the New Lowell United Church are fundraising to put a large addition on the front of their 103-year-old building.
The plans call for just over 1,000 square feet of new space, which would include a new foyer/meeting room, an accessible washroom and a lift that would service both the sanctuary and the meeting area in the basement.
The decision to go ahead with the project did not come without a fair amount of soul-searching. The work started with a visioning committee that met for two years, discussing the importance of the church to its community and brainstorming what needed to be done to make the building accessible.
“It became clear very quickly that putting a simple ramp on the side of the building was not going to work,” said Jennifer Ferguson-Meijs, who currently sits on the church’s fundraising committee. The church’s main floor sits so high off the ground, she said, that a ramp would have to zig and zag for hundreds of feet to reach the front door. In addition, the church’s only two bathrooms are in the basement, and are far too small to allow wheelchair access. The steep stairs that lead up to the sanctuary have also long been a problem for pallbearers at funerals.
“We’ve had people who have been members of this church for 90 years, and their funerals have had to be held elsewhere,” said June Robinson, another member of the fundraising committee. The same goes for baptisms and weddings, whenever guests are unable to climb the necessary stairs.
Deciding that the church is the very heart of the greater New Lowell community – “it’s a place of worship on Sundays and a community gathering place the rest of the week,” said Robinson – the committee eventually decided to go ahead with the expansion.
June Robinson, Jennifer Ferguson-Meijs and Tom Macham, members of the New Lowell United Church fundraising committee.
A building committee was struck, and esteemed church renovation company Hawkey Church Management was retained for the design-build. The resulting plans were warmly received by the congregation, primarily because the exterior of the addition retains much of the character of the 1910 church. One interesting feature is that the large stained glass window on the front of the old structure would become an interior window between the sanctuary and the new foyer.
Importantly, the planned elevator is also big enough to transport pallbearers and coffins.
The church’s fundraising committee is now actively raising money for the addition, which they hope to see completed within three years. The total pricetag is a big one – the quote came in at $350,000 not including blueprints, municipal fees and sitework on the parking lot – but the committee has already raised $121,000 and hopes that the community will see fit to keep giving.
“This church deserves a lot of credit for taking on a task like this,” said Robinson. “We’re really trying to be proactive about this – we want to make this building an accessible place for the whole community to use.”
The committee has a whole bunch of events planned for the remainder of the year, including movie nights (The Life of Pi is showing at 7 pm on Friday, April 26), a yard sale and heritage tea on May 25 and several concerts to be held at the New Lowell Legion (which is generously waiving its rental fees for the church’s events). For more information on events or to donate, visit http://newlowellunitedchurch.weebly.com or call Jen at (705)424-8687 or Marilyn at (705)424-1034.
