Through world wars and civil rights movements, economic crises and two pandemics, Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church has served as a steady cultural presence and the literal cornerstone of Denver’s historic Park Hill neighborhood.

Today, a $7-million project led by Tryba Architects and Colarelli Construction is restoring or reimagining nearly every space in the 85,000-sq-ft building and its two-acre campus. From windows and wiring to a contemporary 1,250-sq-ft, lantern-like addition, more than a dozen integrated projects are designed to ensure Montview’s legacy continues for another 100 years.

While the construction schedule was adjusted to take advantage of the building’s closure during the pandemic, the initial challenge arose from the project’s technical pieces, says Vince Colarelli, president, Colarelli Construction, the project’s construction manager and general contractor. “We have had to determine how to make upgrades to a building that has been built with multiple additions over the course of a century,” he says.

Tryba项目建筑师Megan Burke补充说：“与任何这样的历史项目一样，最大的挑战是我们不知道的。”“我们打开了一堵墙，发现了一个烟囱。我们计划放一个大窗户的地方，我们找到了一个钢梁。”

“It has been an interesting challenge to address design modifications in the field once we discover these unexpected elements,” adds Burke, who conducted weekly site walks with the Colarelli team, “but it has really come together in a transformative way thanks to our collective and collaborative efforts.”

A new 1,250-sq-ft glass window wall creates a light-filled, welcoming space at the historic Montview Church building.
Image courtesy of Colarelli Construction

Modern Makeover

1910年的建筑是一个保存完好的服务le of an early-20th-century urban church, the work of multiple master architects in Denver. In 1918, Harry J. Manning and Frank W. Frewen designed a Richardsonian Romanesque–style addition to the original 1,400-sq-ft chapel. A decade later, Burnham F. Hoyt and Merrill H. Hoyt created the distinctive 1926 educational wing in the same style. And in the late 1950s, the church added its current 10,000-sq-ft sanctuary building to accommodate a booming membership.

2018年，Tryba Architects领导了一个协作流程，以创建Montview的长期校园愿景（恢复和新建决策的路线图），在Montview的“灰色书”中封为。

A dozen priority projects were identified, including reconfiguring the Dahlia Street entrance to improve wayfinding; turning the church’s original—and currently unused—Montview Boulevard entrance into a welcoming “front porch”; and redesigning a hard-to-navigate back alley with uneven concrete, fire escapes and window wells into a charming walkway along Eudora Lane.

Other important work includes restoration of the building’s wood paneling and ornate stonework, MEP upgrades and the refurbishment or replacement of 219 original windows.

The addition of a second floor to the Westminster Commons creates space for a bridge with access to the choir loft.
Image courtesy of Colarelli Construction

Pandemic Delays

当Covid-19于2020年3月到达科罗拉多州时，Montview的工作人员被派往回家远程工作，所有教育计划和教会服务都被转移到在线格式。伯克说：“我们将分阶段进行项目，但是由于每个人都离开教堂，我们决定立即做到这一点。”

Asbestos work and maintenance, including painting the 10,000-sq-ft sanctuary, began in the fall of 2020. However, while the building’s closure allowed the project team to do design and construction in an unoccupied building, the pandemic also threatened to bring the project to a halt on more than one occasion as entire subcontracting teams were affected.

“We thought COVID would shorten the schedule because we’d have full access to the building, but in reality it became our biggest challenge,” says Bob Cloud, Montview director of facilities. “Colarelli had a very stringent COVID policy, and every day a portion of the workforce tested positive and couldn’t come to work. Then, as the project progressed, supply chain issues became our second biggest challenge,” he says.

在新近扩展的达利街入口（以威斯敏斯特公地）的方式内，屋顶被拆除，并用29英尺高的1,250平方英尺的玻璃窗墙代替，以创建类似灯笼的入口元件。

“While standard production time for the glass is six weeks, it took 16 weeks instead,” says Colarelli project manager Courtney Tucker. “We just had to adjust, and that affected all the mechanical and electrical. The window wall placement dictates everything placed in the Commons, so we couldn’t go too far,” she says.

Roofing materials also were delayed for months and unavailable elsewhere in the country. “Staying ahead of [supply chain] challenges has been key,” she adds, noting that it was a daily exercise in pivoting, as crews were moved around the building to work on other pieces of the project.

垂直扩展的下议院区域为会众和社会交流的现代空间带来了更多的光明。
Image courtesy of Tryba Architects

Peeling the Onion

The building’s 100-year construction history also created challenges. “We found elevations for supporting structures to be different than what was shown on the drawings, and we discovered documents for the electrical systems that were materially different than what’s in place. It adds a layer of complication,” Colarelli says.

科拉雷利说：“你知道今天发现了什么，但是你不知道自己依靠什么是不正确的。”随着新细节的发现，团队不断进行调整。

现有的承载砌体墙不在铅板上，必须剃掉一英寸半，以容纳在下议院入口处增加新的可访问性升降机。然后，机组人员在中庭第二层建造了一条人行道，以提供从电梯到合唱团阁楼的可及性，切开了24英寸厚的砖石墙壁，并创建了预制的石材元素以与历史悠久的石头相匹配。塔克说：“建筑物中的每堵墙都是牢固的砌体”，这也对电气工作也构成了挑战。

A European-style walkway replaces the old sidewalk and is designed with radiant heat beneath the concrete to melt snow and ice. Planters are being faced in rhyolite veneer to match the original tumbled stone of the building.
Image courtesy of Tryba Architects

设计的另一个重要元素包括开放建筑物最古老的两个空间 - 1918年的米勒中心和原始的1910年遗产中心，并将它们连接起来。米勒中心剧院（Miller Center Theatre）正在转变为一个灵活的空间，以举办各种社区活动。船员正在恢复其历史悠久的木板，以及登上并绘制过的原始窗户。

“This project was about trying to restore [these spaces] to their original beauty and grandeur,” Colarelli explains, “from the repair and replacement of the [Miller Center’s] dome ceiling to the restoration of light fixtures, reconstruction of the stage and building a new turntable.

“As we started to peel back the layers of the onion, we began to discover what was there and what was not,” he says. As crews rebuilt the stage, they encountered various elevations and add-ons, “so we scrapped the plan, took it apart and reused the original lumber to reconstruct it instead because it was so important to the legacy of the space.

“There’s no way we could have anticipated this in the design,” he adds. “But today everything flows naturally from one space to the other. As a result, the Miller Center is such a beautiful aspect for the campus; its restoration was really meaningful.”

Built in 1918 as the church’s second sanctuary and later turned into a theater for local productions, the 3,365-sq-ft Miller Center is being converted into a flexible, dynamic space to host a variety of events.
图片由Colarelli若干uction

While reconstructing Eudora Lane, crews discovered the corridor had been used for utilities throughout the years—including a storm drain system—that were active and had never been documented. “We had to go back and discover how the storm drain system was working on the building, what could be removed and how to redesign while accommodating changing grades,” Colarelli says.

“您按照第一个，b second，c第三的时间表，但是当一切都彼此顶部时，您会发现它们很难处理，因为它们都是相互关联的。您在此过程中进行了重大的课程校正，这成为了故事。您每天早晨到达那里，并开始整天进行调整。它增加了一层并发症。” Colarelli说。

But the team stayed true to the big picture, often referring to the vision in the Grey Book when challenges arose, he says. “We had to consider the historic quality of the building, along with a more subtle understanding of the legacy piece—how the building wants to celebrate relationships with the greater community,” Colarelli says. “That was key.”

Montview’s Cloud adds: “As the project nears completion this spring, it has been nothing short of amazing to see how all the pieces have come together.”