Lebanon
Congregants and architects have been working to design a new place of worship since the original School Street structure was razed in the wake of a late December arson. Although those plans aren’t complete, church officials said on Tuesday that they’re ready for a first round of city review.
The city Planning Board is scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss whether to grant the church a special exception for a new footprint. The Planning Board also will conduct a full site plan review in August, according to Jack Althouse of the Pennsylvania-based Althouse, Jaffe & Associates architectural firm.
If all goes well, construction of a new church would begin in September, continue through the winter and be ready in late spring or early summer 2018, he said.
Althouse hasn’t finished his designs of the new church, but said it will “have a small-town feel” complete with large windows, a balcony seating area, large lobby and pews arranged in a semicircle.
“They’re anxious to redesign the building so that it still fits into the architectural context of the town,” he said, adding he’s been directed to make the building look “like it belongs in New England.”
Congregants have been worshiping weekly at the Lebanon Middle School after a three-alarm fire heavily damaged the original School Street church in December. The remains of the structure, originally built in 1870, were demolished in the February because of safety concerns.
Police said the fire was deliberately set and later charged 28-year-old Anthony Boisvert, of Lebanon, with several counts of arson in connection to the church blaze and other fires in the city. Boisvert also is facing multiple first-degree assault, witness tampering and felony burglary charges as a result of events following the fire.
During Monday’s meeting, city officials will focus on whether the future church should be granted a special exception to reconfigure the building’s footprint.
“It is important to note that while we are reconfiguring the footprint of the church building, we are not increasing the square footage nor designing for increased occupancy,” attorney Stephen Girdwood wrote in an application to the Zoning Board. “We are simply designing for a more usable layout in this age of modern ministry.”
The former church building was about 12,344 square feet, containing a steeple and belfry, according to city assessing records. That building’s footprint was rectangular in shape, while the new one will be more square, Girdwood said on Tuesday.
Under plans filed with the city, the new structure will move closer to a boundary with neighboring 15 School St., while also moving farther away from both School Street and Green streets. Although the new building wouldn’t meet all of the zoning standards for downtown, Girdwood said, it would meet more than the former building, which was grandfathered because of its age.
“We’re not going to be any closer to School Street than the old building was,” he said.
Once the church burned, congregants had two chances to meet with architects to discuss a future building, Girdwood said. One was a workshop where people drafted their own plans and another was a listening session.
Althouse, who specializes in building churches, then took those recommendations and built a draft interior plan, which was unanimously approved by the congregation after some tweaking, Girdwood said.
“We really see God moving in this process, so we’re excited,” he said.
Plans are still in the works for the church’s exterior features, including its facade and roof, but Girdwood confirmed that the church wants to see a design that matches the neighborhood and potentially uses techniques from the original building. He said the church is still waiting on cost estimates and hasn’t yet finalized talks with its insurance company on a payment for the fire.
“We made it very clear to the architect that our goal is to have a very traditional New England-looking church,” he said. “We’re excited. We finally got out our first filing, which we see as our first step toward reconstruction.”
The Zoning Board is scheduled to discuss the church project at 7 p.m. on Monday at City Hall.
Tim Camerato can be reached at tcamerato@vnews.com.