LEBANON — Nearly six years after an arsonist burned down the First Baptist Church, congregants are preparing to worship at the new building on School Street.
“We’re on our last legs here,” Stephen Girdwood, who chairs the church’s board of trustees, said of the rebuilding process. “What we’re coming up on hopefully is a certificate of occupancy that will allow us to get in and use a portion of the building.”
The goal is to restart worship services before the end of the year. Currently, the congregation, which has 100 to 150 members, meets at the Masonic Lodge in Lebanon and online. Construction on the new building to replace the Gothic Revival structure built in 1870 started in late 2019, three years after the fire was set in late December 2016.
“We’re a couple years beyond where we originally hoped, but we’re moving along,” Girdwood said.
The goal is to complete the interior of the building so that the church can get its certificate of occupancy as construction continues on the rest of the building.
“We have to make sure we finish off what’s necessary for the fire code, things like having everything mudded and taped on the drywall, having the fire doors installed in the stairwells,” Girdwood said.
The COVID-19 pandemic and fundraising challenges have contributed to delays on the project. Initial estimates came in around $2.5 million.
“We had about a little over $2 million in insurance proceeds,” Girdwood said. “We thought we would be fine just raising a few hundred thousand dollars.”
Once it went out to bid in fall 2018, the cost rose to $3.6 million. That left the congregation to come up with $1.2 million to fund construction.
“It was a combination of probably our estimators weren’t as accurate as they could have been as well as the skyrocketing cost of construction,” Girdwood said. “We’ve bridged that gap with some construction financing and then just a wonderful response from our members and the community at large to get us to the point of occupancy here.”
Since 2020, construction costs have risen and the labor shortage has made scheduling contractors more difficult. The congregation is also trying to be financially prudent.
“The other big piece to it is we don’t want to schedule the contractors until we have the money,” Girdwood said. “It’s fundraising, it’s weather and contractors’ schedules all play into when this is going to happen.”
He estimated that it would take $10,000 to $20,000 to complete the work needed to get the certificate of occupancy and $100,000 to $150,000 to complete the entire building, which includes $35,000 to $40,000 for the steeple alone.
“We are very close to what we need for occupancy of the first floor, but we’re looking to continue fundraising until we can complete the building, and that means completely finishing the second floor and getting the basement, the fellowship hall and kitchen all put together,” Girdwood said.
In addition to asking for donations, church members have also held fundraisers. Terry Bolduc is organizing a yard sale and barbecue from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. this Saturday at the Montessori School at 22 School St. She held a similar fundraiser last year that raised around $4,000.
“We’re still having the fellowship and moving forward with ministries, but just to have our own building would be wonderful,” Bolduc said.
Over the last few years, Sally Cole has planted flowers and done other landscaping work outside the new building.
“Helping it have a nice presence outside while all the construction is going on” is Cole’s intent, she said while cleaning up outside the church earlier this month. “School Street is a busy street, and people would stop and ask questions.”
In a way, the church’s rebuilding is felt community-wide, just like its destruction of the church resonated beyond the congregation through the gap it left on heavily traveled road in downtown Lebanon.
“The burned-out site was quite sad for a while,” said Clifton Below, a Lebanon city councilor and businessman. “It was a hole in the fabric of the neighborhood, so it’s great to see it coming to completion.”
Below is among one of many community members who have donated money to assist with construction costs.
“I don’t attend that church, but I wanted to help them recover,” Below said.
Anthony Boisvert, of Lebanon, is currently serving a 25-year sentence for setting the blaze and a host of other charges related to events after the fire.
“In my time here, I think it’s probably been the biggest,” Lebanon Fire Chief Chris Christopoulos, who has served the city for around 20 years, said of the 2016 blaze. “We’re fortunate no one got hurt.”
Seeing the new church emerge has been welcome.
“I think it’s all fantastic that they are able to come back from that tragedy,” Christopoulos said.
In the meantime, congregants are eagerly awaiting the day when they can worship in a sanctuary of their own once again.
“It has been a very difficult time through all of this, but honestly we’re excited and we’re hopeful and we know we’re going to get in it,” said Bolduc, who has attended the church for 35 years. “We know God has a plan, and His timing not ours, so we’re just patiently waiting.”
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
