An Easy-on-the-Earth Expansion

Mary Warner

St. Stephen's Episcopal Cathedral in Harrisburg plans to more than double the space for the cathedral school, with the least possible harm to the earth

For the expansion project, the cathedral is following U.S. Green Building Council standards for cutting pollution and saving energy. It's the first church in the country to do so.

"We see it as an expression of what the stewardship of God's creation is all about," said the Very Rev. Malcolm McDowell, dean of the cathedral on Front Street. "We start with the premise that creation is blessed, and we have to raise that up."

The 23-year-old school, in two former residences adjoining the cathedral, has 188 students in preschool through the eighth grade. The decision four years ago to add seventh and eighth grades moved a long-standing plan for expansion into sharper focus.

Work on the $2.4 million project, which also includes reconfiguring some of the cathedral's other facilities, is expected to begin next summer and be done by fall 2003. The project will convert a parking garage next door to an addition for the school — increasing its size from 8,000 to 20,000 square feet.

The result will be gigger, brighter classrooms, more rest rooms and more room for music, art and the after-school program. Headmistress Carol Lopus will move her desk out of makeshift space in a closet to a full-size office.

In line with the earth-friendly design for that expansion, electric lights will dim and brighten automatically in response to sunlight, floors will be covered with recycled carpeting, and toilets will flush with captured rainwater, said architect Vern McKissick of McKissick Associates in Harrisburg.

Warmth from an overheated basement will transfer to nearby classrooms in a loop of vater.

Wood will come from forests that were not clear-cut, and other materials will be chosen for their cleanliness — both in their production and in their use. They'll come from as nearby as possible, since hauling windows from York takes less energy and makes less pollution than hauling them from Iowa, for example, McKissick said.

Everything removed from the 73-year-old parking garage during the conversion will be sorted for recycling.

In recent years, churches have increasingly drawn a connection between faith and concern for the environment. St Stephen's decided to make that connection in its building project. The cathedral has an environmental stewardship committee, headed by John Dernbach, a professor of environmental law at Widener University.

The cathedral's project and 16 others in Pennsylvania — including elementary schools in Hanover and Wrightsville — are among 231 nationwide that have registered their intention to seek a rating under the U.S. Green Building Council Standards.

The standards are a recent development. The 3-year-old state Department of Environmental Protection building on Elmerton Avenue was one of the first building projects in the nation to use them.

The council is a coalition of building industry leaders who promote buildings that are environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy places to live and work. It awards points for each standard met by a participating project, which then gets a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating.

St. Stephen's is aiming for a silver rating — the third highest of four. And a project next door has also agreed to seek a silver rating — as part of the settlement that ended the cathedral's opposition to the project's zoning exception, architects for both projects have confirmed.

The neighboring project in and office building that will be the second tallest in Harrisburg. Because of the shade it will cast, the school has dropped plans for special window fixtures that would have captured sunlight to reduce electrical use, McKissick said.

Scot Horst, director of Interfaith Power & Light, said he expects more churches to seek LEED ratings, despite some typically higher up-front costs for planning fees. "It makes a lot of sense. You end up saving money in energy costs and... that's more money to do other good things — like buy green power or help someone who needs food or clothes," he said.

Interfaith Power, a program of the nonprofit Enterprising Environmental Solutions in Harrisburg was funded two years ago by the Heinz Foundation to provide environmental education and consulting services to faith groups. It is helping the cathedral with its project.

The project got extra LEED points from the start because it will use an existing building — the parking garage built by the church for its congregation in 1928 — and avoids demolishing a building and erecting another.

The real key to green building is integrating all the choices in the construction process, Horst said. In one simple example he cited, the number of lighting fixtures a room needs can be reduced by choosing the right kind of paint — one that relects light well.

The school, a mission of the cathedral, services pupils who are diverse by race and religion, Lopus said. Forty percent of the pupils receive some sort of financial assistance toward the $3,100 annual tuition, she said.