St. Helen Catholic Church in Newbury Township is in the process of demolishing its old sanctuary, making space to relocate its playground, according to an article Rev. Jay McPhillips wrote for the church’s bulletin.
St. Helen Catholic Church in Newbury Township is in the process of demolishing its old sanctuary, making space to relocate its playground, according to an article Rev. Jay McPhillips wrote for the church’s bulletin.
“The actual demolition will take about two weeks, but there is a lot more to be done,” he wrote. “We need to put a new wall along the whole eastern side of the building. The new wall will be finished with the same yellow brick that covers the rest of the school. We will need to redo the roof line and do some work on the floors.”
The decision to make these changes followed concerns the building was unsafe.
“A little more than a year ago, we found out that the old church was structurally unsound and removed everything inside. After having structural engineers examine the building, it was decided that repairing the building was out of the question,” he said, adding the old church was converted from a barn back in 1949.
“Barns are not engineered. They are built and in about 100 years, they fall down,” McPhillips said. “We estimate that our old church is roughly 110 to115 years old. We had done some things over the years to fortify it, but time has caught up to us and the building needs to come down.”
He fondly recalled the thousands of celebrations — communions, weddings and baptisms — he presided over in the church.
“I used to tell people how the church was an old barn, but it’s the nicest barn in Geauga County. So, this is the end of an era,” McPhillips wrote.
The demolition started at the end of December and should be done sometime in March, he said.
“Our planning committee has been making plans for the future of our school and parish. They have developed a wonderful plan that we hope to share with the parish in the next couple of months,” McPhillips wrote. “With the EdChoice expansion that the state of Ohio has passed for private and parochial schools, in addition to the Angel Scholarship Fund that many of you have donated to, the future looks bright for our school.”
Reconstruction of the school is part of the strategy to serve students and the community.
“This is a bitter-sweet time for our parish,” McPhillips wrote. “Many of us have many fond memories of celebrations that have taken place in our old church building. But, it is also an exciting time as we look forward to rebuilding our school and passing on the faith to future generations of young people.”
