CHURCHES
At Gronen, we are sensitive to the sacred nature of places of worship. We strive to maintain the historical attributes of each project, and understand the unique challenges when rehabilitating religious structures.
WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING
"In the summer of 2014, St. Elias the Prophet Greek Orthodox Church suffered an irreparable structural fault in our 60-year-old building on Rockdale Road. Three of the four wooden trusses were cracked, and we were suddenly without a church. The solution our parish finally decided upon was to purchase the former Grandview Methodist Church at 419 N. Grandview and renovate it.
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This beautiful 1928 Collegiate Gothic church building had been in disrepair for about 10 years since the founding church faith community moved. Gronen and partners examined the building for us prior to purchase and presented a picture of what this beautiful old building could be if brought back to its glory days. The "bones" were excellent, but we had to have faith to look past crumbling plaster, an old infrastructure, and an unusable church basement. Gronen did a complete pre-purchase evaluation of the building for us and our parish decided to go forward.
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Although we had a couple of parishioners who were knowledgeable in construction, this undertaking was unique unto itself. The building is very large with multiple HVAC systems. Replacement of the HVAC was our first necessary undertaking as the furnace had proven very unreliable. Gronen was very mindful of our worship schedule and other parish activities when scheduling work. From there, we remodeled the lower level commercial kitchen, which is so integral to our fundraising. Our most important phase took place in 2020 for our worship space (Narthex, Sanctuary, Altar, and Sacristy). This renovation brought the space back to its original splendor and transformed it into an Orthodox Christian place of worship.
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The Gronen team have brought us through the transformation to date in a way that we have fully understood the process at every point. Every question has been answered to our our understanding and satisfaction. In Dubuque, Gronen is the expert team for historical renovations. We have been very pleased with every phase of our relationship with them."
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—Mantea Kapatanakes Schmid, St. Elias Building Renovation Chair