Print Article     Email Article

Photo by Bary Rustin Photography, Evanston, IL

by Alison Istnick     Added February 02, 2009

As published in Worship Facilities, Jan/Feb 2009

On a crisp Midwestern morning, Kenneth Sproul, a longtime member of Park Community Church located in Chicago, happened across a ramshackle industrial warehouse just northwest of the city’s center. Where others saw a crumbling brick building, Sproul recognized the potential the structure and its location held for Park’s 17-year-old urban portable-church ministry.

Sproul, a principal with SMB Development in Chicago was chosen to oversee the restoration and construction of Park’s newly chosen permanent facility. “The immense structure was in poor condition aesthetically, however, the core offered thick concrete floors with solid concrete columns throughout,” notes Sproul. The site, surrounded on all sides by sharply divergent communities, is less than a mile from the heart of downtown Chicago, or what is locally known as “the loop.” The 100,000-square-foot building sits tenaciously on the edge of Cabrini-Green: a 20-block sprawling housing project recognized as one of Chicago’s most dangerous neighborhoods. In stark contrast, the site’s west, north and south areas are meccas of high-end townhomes, condos and shopping districts including the River North Gallery district and the tourist shopping destination of Michigan Avenue.

Community Common Ground
The mix of economic communities, each within a stone’s throw of Park’s new permanent facility, presents a new facet to life at Park Community Church. As Executive Pastor Jonathan Masters details, “In the late 1980s, a singles pastor from Chicago’s Moody Church had a heart for reaching out to young, urban, upscale professionals—known then as “yuppies.” Moody Church provided the funds and 50 people to start this new church that became Park Community.”

The vibrant ministry first held services at Francis Parker School, one of two downtown private schools situated in the midst of the upwardly mobile community of Lincoln Park. “Park Community Church grew up in the presence of a really upscale pedestrian part of Chicago where people lived, walked, worked out. In the early days, services were highly creative and had a spontaneous flavor to the worship style—it was a safe place where young professional singles could invite friends and start a spiritual conversation,” says Masters.

Over the years a maturation process has taken place within the church and its congregation. Services today slant towards experiential and meditative rather than high-octane presentational. “We still attract young upscale urban dwellers, but now we are also a bridge between the communities that surround us—they may be across the street from each other, however, they are worlds apart.

It’s an opportunity that we’re just starting to see unfold,” notes Masters.

The property’s acquisition also marks a novel approach to urban ministry. Not only was a Chicago landmark saved, but the building’s inherent character was preserved and carefully merged with the modern needs of a growing congregation. Doug Pasma, principal of Goss Pasma Architects in Evanston, Ill., the chosen architect for Park’s facility, notes, “Park Community is such a unique project—you just don’t see evangelical churches showing up in urban upper-class areas. We haven’t really had a model to follow for this church.”

One dilemma Pasma faced was how to fit a technically satisfying worship venue inside the old building. “In the city, stairs are not such a big deal, so we decided to put the auditorium on the top floor,” says Pasma. The roof was literally torn off (about a million pounds of concrete was crushed and later used for fill) and an all-new, steel, clear-span auditorium was constructed on top of the existing two stories.

Unfortunately, the almost 80-year-old building that once housed a tea company lacked records of design or blueprints. Pasma recounts, “The mystery surrounding the building’s engineering proved problematic for moving forward with the addition of a rooftop sanctuary. After tying the process up for almost nine months, the building was reverse-engineered to determine safe load bearing limits.”

The new auditorium proved to be well worth the extra construction time and effort. A floor-to-ceiling glass wall graces the area behind the stage, offering breathtaking views of Chicago’s abundant high-rises and skyscrapers, including the John Hancock building. This visual proximity is entirely consistent with the vision for Park Community, which since its inception has been to “do church in the skyline of the city.”

Equipping the View
Bruce Smith, principal and co-leader with Church Solutions Group of Barrington, Ill., was selected to design and install audio, lighting and video systems that would fulfill the room’s technical potential. “Obviously the glass stage wall presented a lot of problems technically; especially if you are going to have a high production value in the room,” concurs Smith. “However, I am a church person. And when an urban church says we want to put a glass wall at the back of our stage because we want to see our city when we pray for it—I’m moved by that. It makes me want to figure out how we can make this work.” Church Solutions installed thick velour curtains, powered by customized H & H motors from South El Monte, Calif.-based H & H Specialties Inc., to cover and dampen acoustical reflections off the glass during worship.

To optimize the church’s technical budget, Smith included his client’s technical staff and volunteers during installation. Smith explains, “We’re unique in that we assess the strengths and weaknesses of the church staff and its volunteers and then use them as part of our labor force. If there are gaps in skill sets, we fill those in with our people. By the end of the project the church has a working knowledge of the installation and integration of their equipment. And, the bottom line is it saves the church a lot of money.”

Forward Thinking
Park Community Church brought together its architect and technical designer, Pasma and Smith (the duo also partnered on the Willow Creek auditorium), early in the project. Because the two initially consulted with each other on issues such as wall placement and room shaping, the walls were placed to optimally affect acoustics—to the extent of negating the need for acoustic paneling on the auditorium’s walls. Planning ahead for speaker positioning played a key role in focusing energy on the room’s seating, rather than on the walls.

Another challenge facing Park Community was performing routine construction three stories above ground level. As Smith recalls, “We had to keep a hole in the wall. Anything too big had to get craned in or out. Also, with this being an old manufacturing plant, we had to core and pipe everything. It’s more difficult than if you are doing a new construction.”

Sproul refers, in Chicago vernacular, to the first step taken: “We did a complete gut of the building. Meaning we hollowed it out down to its shell, we took out all electrical, plumbing, heating, mechanical systems, elevators and interior walls.” The shell that was left consisted of beams, columns, floor plate and exterior walls—everything that was put back into the building was completely new.

The auditorium seats slightly less than 1,200 in a church that owns less than one acre of square footage in its entirety. The second floor houses classrooms and church administration offices along with the “Park Café.” On the third floor are the church offices and the new auditorium. Throughout the structure the old building “leaks” through with design elements offering a clean retro feel. Old beams are present along with aged brick. Flooring options are simple: stained concrete intermixed with colored carpet tile. Pasma, with the help of a small group from Park Community, designed the church’s interior. He notes, “I love old buildings and the exposed concrete and the raw brick and high ceilings. The massive old structure of the building is tied in with modern details and finishes. It’s taking an old foundation and putting a modern overlay on top of it.”

The master plan includes a four-story parking garage to be built later on. On top of this parking garage condominiums can be built. “Imagine a three-story rehabbed brick building with a four-story parking garage attached with 12-14 floors of condos on top of the garage” says Pasma.

Currently, the first floor accommodates 60 indoor parking spaces that in the future will house community rooms. Another 40 cars can park in an open-air lot just north of the building that will be the site of the future parking garage.

The Value of Rehab vs. New Construction
Sproul, who first spotted the building, offers this, “Some readers might wonder ‘why not tear down the building and start new?’ This is the way I look at it. If you build a comparable facility in a downtown location, my estimation is that it would cost about $20 million. We spent $12 million on the rehab, so in one perspective, we saved $8 million. What we also gained is intangible—we preserved a unique historical building that for years will carry a very distinct ministry and vision.”

[ View a photo flipbook of Park Community Church in the media section of our website to see more pictures of the facility. ]

[ Worship Facilities magazine regrets that the photo credits for this article were incorrect in the printed version. All photos were taken by Barry Rustin Photography, of Evanston, IL ]

Alison Istnick is a regular contributing writer for Church Production Magazine and Worship Facilities Magazine. She can be reached at aistnick@churchproduction.com.

You must be registered and logged in to post comments.