TACOMA – The Gothic towers and stained-glass dome of a historic church near downtown may become relics of the past, as members of the congregation vote on whether it should be sold so two nearby hospitals can expand.
Members of First United Methodist Church are scheduled to vote Sunday on whether to sell the building to MultiCare Health System, which operates Tacoma General and Mary Bridge Children’s hospitals.
Many of the congregation’s 150 members say they’re resigned to the sale. Concrete floors are crumbling, most of the church isn’t handicap-accessible, and the building has never been retrofitted to withstand earthquakes.
As decision day looms, Harriet Huffman and other members struggle with their attachments to the sanctuary.
“Although the thought of tearing down the building gives me great anxiety … the part of my brain that is realistic tells me that’s what we should do,” said Huffman, 81, who has attended the church since 1947.
MultiCare plans to tear the church down, expand the hospitals’ crowded emergency departments and add an urgent care clinic. Diane Cecchettini, MultiCare’s chief executive officer, said there’s no way to remodel the building as an emergency department and bring it up to current codes.
Mary Lynn, the congregation’s lay leader, said MultiCare is tentatively offering about $6 million for the building and land – twice the appraised value.
The congregation would pay from $600,000 to $800,000 to buy land where MultiCare owns a small park and parking lot, then build a new church and community center for about $15 million.
That, Lynn said, would further “some of the dreams we have about being a healing center.”
The Rev. Monty Smith, the church’s pastor since 1995, said First United Methodist and MultiCare are working together with a “shared vision” to help each other and the community.
A new church would provide more useful space for the congregation and more than a dozen nonprofit programs and agencies now housed in the church’s First Center – including a health ministry, an outreach to the Hispanic community and a farm-workers group.
The church also runs the My Sister’s Pantry food and clothing bank; the social-justice Micah Project, which sponsors programs on the war in Iraq and other topics; and a store for products from developing nations that helps pay artisans in those countries livable wages.
It would cost about $3 million to make the old church safe with new electrical wiring, a new roof and furnace, and earthquake retrofitting, Lynn said.
Lynn said the church has been working with an architect, trying to figure out whether the sweeping gold-and-blue dome of the 89-year-old sanctuary and other parts of the church could be preserved and incorporated into the new buildings.
“That dome made me feel closer to God than I’ve ever felt,” said Crestina Marez, 53, who has attended the church for 18 years.
Michael Sullivan, a former historic preservation officer for the city of Tacoma and a past president of the Washington Trust for Historic Preservation, called First United Methodist an “architectural masterpiece” and “one of the great interiors in the city.”
Soon after it was built in 1916, the church became an assembly center for World War I efforts. When the influenza epidemic of 1918 hit, the church basement was transformed into an emergency hospital, Sullivan said.
Martha Curwen, 60, runs the food pantry and has attended First United Methodist her entire life. “Should the day come that the wrecking ball goes,” Curwen said, “I might be standing on the corner crying my eyes out.”
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