Starting next year, Christ Episcopal Church will no longer be the sole tenant of 1355 Northern Boulevard, which it has called home for nearly two centuries.
Workers are currently in the process of renovating the church’s parish house, which Christ Episcopal will co-own with a doctor’s office and day care facility, in addition to building a Citibank location in place of the church’s former 4,000 square-foot rectory, said Rev. David Lowry, the church’ rector.
Construction on the property began in March and will include bringing the parish house up to current town regulations and building codes, as well as removing outdated and unsafe building materials – what Lowry called “things that seemed to be either good or benign when the building was designed,” such as asbestos and lead.
In addition, elevators and a wheel chair-accessible ramp will be installed in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, Lowry said. The entire project is expected to be completed sometime in the first quarter of 2014.
“We knew we needed between 7,000 and 8,000 square feet of building, shape or form, to support the life of the parish,” Lowry said. “We had been looking for 60 years for an answer. We looked through a number of different options and some of them involved getting rid of the building and building something separate for ourselves.”
The parish house was built in 1930 as the new site of Christ Episcopal’s elementary school, but lost funding as a result of the Great Depression.
After World War II, Munsey Park Elementary School and the building that houses Manhasset Middle School and Manhasset High School were built as part of the Works Progress Administration. When St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church opened its elementary school across the street on Northern Boulevard in 1949, Christ Episcopal abandoned the idea of re-opening its school, Lowry said.
“The whole demographics and needs of the town were changing,” Lowry said.
In the years that followed, Lowry said various non-profit groups occupied the parish house, including a drug rehabilitation facility and a dance studio, but the church could not afford the cost to renovate the building.
“It was never a church issue, even though people would wonder whether the church would close and we’d pack up and leave,” Lowry said. “That was never the case, it was a matter of, ‘what could we do with this huge building we couldn’t find a way to successfully use.’”
In 2010, the church was in the final stages of completing negotiations with the Great Neck-based Jobco Realty and Construction, Inc. to turn the parish house into a senior housing development. But after residents and parishoners expressed an interest in keeping the parish house open, Lowry said, the two sides reached an agreement to subdivide the property under what is known as a common law subdivision, wherein the church would own 8,000 square feet and the remaining 19,000 would be split between the doctor’s office and day care center.
During construction, Lowry said Christ Episcopal’s offices, which had been located within the parish house, have been housed at the Community Reformed Church, located just up the road at 90 Plandome Road.
“That’s really the second part of this story, that out of all this has come a relationship with the Community Reformed Church and how we’ve reached across denominational borders,” Lowry said. “The future of ministry is with the community, it’s not with denominations any longer. We’ve combined programs with them and even shared services in ways that has never been done before. None of us have a future in being competitive by denomination any longer.”
Lowry said the new development is a “win-win for the community” because the doctor’s office, bank and day care center each operate primarily from Monday through Friday, and would not create traffic congestion along Northern Boulevard on Sundays when church services take place.
“We’ve been here since 1802, and we plan to be here until 2222,” Lowry said.
