Well, the actual building demolition is essentially finished. We’ve had all kinds of big machinery trundling around the property – scooping and digging and hauling and pushing. (I keep sending videos to Miles, my 4 year old grandson, who likes construction these days and suddenly is very interested in my job.) This week at church has been loud and shaking as two jackhammers have been going at the footings left behind by buildings long gone – mostly footings from the victorian era buildings that lined 4th Street from the Fox Building all the way up to Race Street. At night, PECO has been blocking 4th Street and jackhammering open the street to install a new electrical vault for the power to Old First House and to the neighboring construction project to our south.
Now, the original Trinity (3+ stacked rooms that were the original 151 / Fox building) stands alone. It might have been like that in the beginning, but more likely in the 1760’s, it had similar neighbors.
To me, it reminds me of photos of the late 60’s when the redevelopment corp had cleared the 19th century buildings to its north and the early 20th century buildings to the south (and before we’d built the CE building). Truth be told, it’s looking sort of tall and lonely there.
The building movers will begin their work on Monday. We still don’t have a fixed date for the move. They estimate that it will take 2 to 3 weeks for them to prepare 151 for getting moved. Perhaps we will have more info once they are on site and have begun work. We will keep you informed.
But we do have a date for a groundbreaking ceremony. Remember, Community Ventures hoped to have the groundbreaking the day the building got moved. Well, the difficulty of pinning that date down as well as the necessity of getting on the politicians schedules ahead of time has forced them to change plans. There is now a groundbreaking ceremony planned for Monday, November 20th from noon to 1:30 pm. Mayor Kenney and Councilman Squilla and other leaders from the city and the state, as well as others involved in the project will be present. The whole congregation is invited to attend. The groundbreaking ceremony will happen on the construction site. (There will be chairs set up, but you should dress for outside weather in November.)
We are now 11 weeks behind our original construction schedule. Most of that delay was caused by the wait on getting the demolition permit from L&I. If you have some room in your prayers – pray that we make up some of this time, and pray for good weather weekdays this winter to avoid further delay.
