By Frederick H. Lowe
CORRESPONDENT

As more parishes begin building and renovation projects, more designers and contractors are working on church projects every year. For many of them, the projects are more than jobs. They are expressions of faith.

“I believe in the church. I attended Catholic schools and a Catholic college,” said Marty Serena, a partner in Prisco Serena Sturm, a Northbrook architectural firm that has designed about 15 churches and parish offices, including St. Julie Billiart in Tinley Park. “Churches are places where the community meets to worship, socialize, and participate in educational and recreational activities. They embody the values of the community.”

More firms are getting a chance to express those faith values, as capital construction budgets within the Chicago Archdiocese for the last three years have doubled compared with the previous three years, said C. Gregory Veith, the archdiocese’s manager of facilities and construction, which certifies companies to work on parish projects.

Chicago parishes have spent $100 million a year during the last three years on capital construction, which includes both new construction and renovation, Veith said during an interview. That compares with $50 million to $60 million a year that had been spent on capital construction from 1997 through 1999, he said.

Veith attributes the dramatic increase in funds for capital construction to the Chicago Archdiocese’s Millennium Campaign, in which parishes are raising money for new construction or renovation as well as for archdiocesan needs.

The growing number of projects has tripled the number of contractors working in the archdiocese, Veith said.

“I know of at least 10 general contractors working on projects now,” said Veith after briefly falling silent while counting the names of general contractors in his head. “I think there are about 15 to 20 general contractors working on projects year around.”

General contractors coordinate the work of as many as 30 specialized building trades working on a single project. Trade workers include roofers, tuck pointers, painters, boilermakers, architects, and glaziers. About 1,500 contractors are working on 50 construction or renovation projects in the archdiocese, Veith said.

Some companies have devoted their firm’s entire practice to working on church projects.

“Our practice is 100 percent religious,” said Robert Nickola, a partner in the Park Ridge architectural firm of Jaeger, Nickola & Associates, which designed the Cardinal Joseph Bernardin School in Orland Hills and Our Lady of the Brook Catholic Church in Northbrook.

“The firm had a history of religious work, but it was mostly for the Protestant faith,” Nickola said. “When I became a partner in 1984, I began to bring more Catholic work into the firm. Now our work is half Catholic and half Protestant.”

Working for the archdiocese is not easy, Veith admits. The archdiocese requires contractors to have a pension plan for employees and to practice affirmative action.

“We want firms that are financially stable, and they must have a good reputation for quality work. Our standards are very high,” he said.

Some contractors not only meet Veith’s standards, but win national recognition.

The Painting and Decorating Contractors of America, a Fairfax, VA-based organization representing over 3,200 contractors, awarded top honors to Fortune & Associates Painting Contractors Inc. for its interior painting of Our Lady of Victory Church, 5212 W. Agatite.

The association gave its “Picture it Painted Professionally” award to Fortune, and the PDCA recognized Fortune for its work at PDCA’s 1998 convention.

Contractors not only bring their professionalism to a project, they also bring new ideas that come with their education and development.

Architect Serena designs churches that make maximum use of natural light, which is known as day lighting.

“Daylight increases learning capacity and during the summer it reduces the amount of energy a church needs,” said Serena, a member of Wisconsin’s Day-lighting Collaborative. “It creates an environment where people want to be.”

Veith’s office gives parish members an approved list of contractors and helps parishes make their selections. Parish members often visit a completed building to assess the quality of a contractor’s work.

When a parish decides to construct a new church or renovate an existing structure, Veith’s office must approve a master plan that looks at the parish’s needs at least 10 years into the future.

The architect usually writes the master plan after a series of meetings with the parish staff, building committee and liturgical groups.

The master plan looks at a number of key issues, including an inventory of space and parish demographics. Any change to a church’s worship space must be approved by the Office of Divine Worship and reviewed by the cardinal.

“This [the writing the master plan] is a bottom-up process, and I want a neutral third-party facilitator to do it in order to avoid any slanted views about what the parish’s needs are,” Veith said.

The meetings range from several months to several years, said architect Nickola.

“We have to have a consensus to make sure everyone is on the same page,” he added.

“It took 12 meetings over nine months before we began work on restoration of St. Teresa of Avila at 1037 W. Armitage,” said Brian Ward, vice president of the Ward Contracting & Building Restoration, a family-owned, general-contracting firm based in Lyons that specializes in church restoration.

“The meetings concerned everything from budgeting to construction methods,” he said. The $1.6 million project expanded the church building, upgraded its mechanical and electrical systems, restored its facade and installed an elevator for the physically challenged, Ward said.

Once Veith’s office approves the master plan, the parish must have at least 66 percent of the money needed for construction in the bank before the actual work can begin. The archdiocese can assist parishes in raising the money.

When the actual work begins, contractors observe a self-imposed code of behavior while on church property.

“There’s a lot more respect taken inside a church,” said Thomas Fortune of Fortune and Associates. “We might play loud music and eat our lunch on other job sites, but we don’t do it in a church.”

His clients appreciate his employees’ behavior.

“Tom’s workers were courteous, friendly and always professional,” wrote Father Daniel McCarthy, pastor of Our Lady of Victory. “Their clean-up after the work was done may have left the church cleaner than it was before they started!”

Fortune, who was born and raised Catholic, also selects a mostly Catholic painting crew to work on parish projects because they are familiar with church statuary and procedures.

In addition to the contractors’ self-imposed code of behavior, Veith has his own rules. Contractors are forbidden from working during funerals, weddings and on Good Friday.

“I don’t advise them not to work when these events occur. I tell them not to,” Veith said.

Despite the challenges, contractors working for the archdiocese describe their work as extremely satisfying.

“When you work on a church, you’re designing more than a building. It’s a community,” said Serena of Prisco Serena and Sturm.