Dear St. Paul’s family,
If you’ve ever been involved in a home improvement project of any size, you know that nothing goes according to plan. Our current Cathedral Campus Redevelopment Project is no exception. As you must have noticed, there is significant work being done in the Great Hall building: our development partner Greystar is making several improvements to our electrical supply and accessibility so that we can operate throughout the construction period of the next three years.
One of those improvements involves the rebuilding of our elderly elevator. The ramp along the east side of the building has been completed, and the elevator lobby work is almost done, but there have been several hiccups and the schedule we had hoped for, whereby we would have an outdoor lift installed to allow access to the Great Hall office suite during the elevator work, has not materialized. Work on the elevator began this week, and we came up against the unwelcome fact that we will have no bathrooms accessible to those who cannot manage stairs for the next two to three months, which will likely encompass the Gala150 and Christmas.
Our elderly and less physically able parishioners are cherished members of this community, and it has become an urgent matter to provide bathroom facilities of some kind throughout this time. So we have arranged to rent a deluxe, wheelchair-accessible mobile bathroom for the duration. We are limited to locating it within 20 feet of the street, for the weekly cleanout, which unfortunately means that it will be stationed in the Queen’s Courtyard. Kathleen is working on a way to disguise it, but we will likely not have the disguise in place by this weekend. It won’t be pretty, but I hope you will understand that providing bathroom facilities for everyone is a critical part of our welcome to all.
The bathroom will be equipped with a combination lock and ushers, docents, and staff will have the combination to share with parishioners who need it. In order to keep the bathroom in good shape, we will limit its use to those who are unable to manage the stairs to the Great Hall bathrooms, and also to those who are genuinely engaged in our ministries, so please don’t share the combination with others.
We are all learning to be flexible as we work through all the complexities that will ultimately result in a much improved and fully accessible campus. Thank you for your patience!
Your sister in Christ,
Penny
