A Christ Episcopal Church official said Friday renovations to its parish house and construction of a 4,000 square-foot Citibank location on Northern Boulevard remains on pace for completion by the start of 2014.
Rev. David Lowry, the church’s rector, said the interior of the parish house has been “entirely gutted” for the removal of asbestos and other building materials that are unsafe and no longer up to code. Work to reconstruct the building’s interior will begin next week, Lowry said.
“We’re moving a bit slower than we’ve hoped for, but we’re quite pleased by the progress,” Lowry said. “We had a bit of bad weather with the heat wave and some rainy periods, which isn’t great for when you’re working outside, but we’re catching up to where we want to be very quickly.”
Lowry said he expects the building’s interior to be constructed quickly because work can be done despite any possible adverse weather conditions.
Construction on the property began in March. Christ Episcopal will co-own the parish house with a doctor’s office and day-care facility.
As part of the project, elevators and a wheel chair-accessible ramp will be installed in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, Lowry has said.
Lowry said workers are also connecting utility lines and plumbing to the Great Neck Sewer District, which controls Northern Boulevard and Shelter Rock Road.
“There are several processes done before anything ever gets hooked up,” Lowry said. “It’s just a matter of hooking up the mains with electricity and gas along the sewer. That should be done within the next couple of days.”
The parish house was built in 1930 as the new site of Christ Episcopal’s elementary school, but lost funding as a result of the Great Depression.
The urgency to open an elementary school there dissipated after when Munsey Park Elementary School and the building that houses Manhasset Middle School and Manhasset High School were built as part of the Works Progress Administration.
When St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church opened its elementary school across the street on Northern Boulevard in 1949, Lowry said Christ Episcopal abandoned the idea of re-opening its school.
In the years that followed, various non-profit groups occupied the parish house, including a drug rehabilitation facility and a dance studio, but the church could not afford the cost to renovate the building.
In 2010, the church was in the final stages of completing negotiations with the Great Neck-based Jobco Realty and Construction, Inc. to turn the parish house into a senior housing development.
But after residents and parishoners expressed an interest in keeping the parish house open, Lowry said the two sides reached an agreement to subdivide the property under what is known as a common law subdivision, wherein the church would own 8,000 square feet and the remaining 19,000 would be split between the doctor’s office and day care center.
During construction, Lowry said Christ Episcopal’s offices, which had been located within the parish house, have been moved to the Community Reformed Church, located just up the road at 90 Plandome Road.
