By: Deborah Johnson Wood
It’s been nearly a year since Central Reformed Church at 10 College Avenue NE broke ground on its new entryway, narthex and expanded lower level. But now a ceremony is in the works for a June 29 dedication celebrating the project’s completion.
The airy space topped by a clear roof underscored with clerestory windows allows natural light into the adjacent sanctuary and chapel, and even all the way into the lower level fellowship hall where the addition of a few windows and a grand staircase enables even more light to filter through.
“The whole space is much more welcoming architecturally,” says Dennis Kellermeier, chair of the building committee. “It’s a welcoming space to enter before Sunday services and events, and a reception space afterward. Before, there wasn’t any place to go after a service or event; people had to find their way downstairs, and that required walking through the back of the building to find the elevator or going down a dark stairway.”
A new elevator in the narthex provides easy access to and from the fellowship hall and restrooms.
The project also called for adding air conditioning in the chapel, new sanctuary carpeting and porcelain tile in the chancel area to improve acoustics which is benefit to the community because the church is often the site of concerts and last week was the site of Opera Grand Rapids auditions.
“The congregation is amazed. It’s much more than they expected,” Kellermeier says. The church was built in the 1950s in the Georgian Colonial style and we matched the brick and the slate roof on the narthex slope. Now the brick and windows that were the part of the exterior of the building are the two main elements inside the narthex.”
Source: Dennis Kellermeier, Central Reformed Church
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Deborah Johnson Wood is the development news editor for Rapid Growth Media. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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