|
The past, however, will not be forgotten. First Presbyterian Church will celebrate its last service at 10 a.m. Sunday in the parking lot of its hurricane-damaged church on Harvey Street and West Marion Avenue. “This whole experience has been an incredible journey of faith and God’s grace,” First Presbyterian’s pastor, the Rev. Stephen Mock, said. “We are a stronger and better church than we were before Charley, and it’s all due to God’s grace.”
When Hurricane Charley hit Punta Gorda on Aug. 13, 2004, it did what Hurricane Donna could not do on Sept. 10, 1960. According to the congregation’s history, Donna toppled First Presbyterian’s steeple and caused other damage. Rather than restore the church to its traditional design, congregation members decided to build a new church with a more contemporary, A-frame sanctuary design. The new church cost $70,000 to build and was dedicated on March 4, 1962.
Since Charley, First Presbyterian has been celebrating its weekly services at Burnt Store Presbyterian Church. The damage sustained from Hurricane Charley’s winds rang a death knell for the First Presbyterian Church — at least at its present location.
Tough decision
Mock last month celebrated his second year as First Presbyterian’s pastor. He is glad he was serving as pastor at the church a year before Charley hit. "I was coming down Marion towards the church; I could see the steeple above the (City Hall annex), and I thought the church was still standing,” Mock said, recalling his first inspection of the church immediately after the hurricane.
“When I turned the corner, it was gone, and my heart just sank,” he said. Not only had Charley’s winds ripped apart the main beams of the church, but the sanctuary roof collapsed. Everything in the sanctuary was destroyed. Amazingly, Mock said, a gold cross, which had been set on a communion table, was found after the hurricane standing upright on one of the only spots on the floor clear of debris.
For several months after the hurricane, Mock said, the congregation debated whether it should rebuild the church at its present location on Harvey Street. "We really were looking hard at it,” he said. “We really hated to leave this site. There’s a lot of history here.” But the closer they looked, Mock said, the more it became apparent the church should move.
“We’re locked in here,” he said. “We really cannot expand. We were also caught in the (Federal Emergency Management Agency) 50-percent rule.” Because the church is in the Peace River floodplain, the FEMA 50-percent rule calls for a rebuilt church to be raised above the base flood elevations or to be flood-proofed. That translates into additional expenses for construction — more money and time than the congregation could afford.
"It appears the Lord was leading us to the Taylor Road site,” Mock said. “We looked at other downtown properties because (downtown) is a perfect location for us.” But no available properties in the downtown area would be suited for a new church.
Before Hurricane Charley, First Presbyterian counted 250 or more worshipers in the winter months and 150 or more in the summer months. The Harvey Street property is actually three lots forming an L-shape on 0.8 acres, a portion of which also fronts on Durrance Street.
First Presbyterian is now selling the Harvey Street lots individually, asking $400,000 to $500,000 apiece. The church has contracts on two of the lots, but it is still looking for a buyer for its lot on the corner of Harvey and West Marion.
For several months, the church members didn’t really know where they could go, but Mock said Kudvik Kacirek, the owner of the Airport Road property, contacted the church after reading a Sun article that focused on the church’s situation. Mock described Kacirek as “coming out of the blue” with his proposal.
“I read they were looking for property that was suitable for them, and I felt my property was suitable,” Kacirek said. He had owned the Airport Road property for a year. His property is 4.6 acres and had once been the home of the Italian-American Club.
“The insurance paid for the building out there, and selling (the Harvey Street) properties will pay for the renovation of the building out there,” Mock said. “The Italian-American Club property was attractive to us, not only for the 4.6-acre property, but it also gave us an 8,000-square-foot building that could easily be converted into a church.”
Starting over
First Presbyterian Church historically was the first Presbyterian church built in Charlotte County. Its charter members originally worshiped with other Christian denominations in a community room at a time when Punta Gorda was literally a frontier town.
In many ways, First Presbyterian is forging an entirely new chapter to its history.
The plan now is to remodel the Italian-American Club building. The building can serve as its sanctuary initially and then be transformed into a fellowship hall, once the congregation is ready to expand.“It’ll be like what’s called a ‘starter’ church,” Mock said. The congregation’s goal is to be ready to expand in five years.
Hurricane Charley obliterated the Harvey Street church, but it did not destroy the church’s gold-metal steeple, which was built in 1995, or strip it of the silver-colored cross sitting on top of the steeple. Mock would like to incorporate the steeple from the old church into the new church; however, he doesn’t quite know if the golden steeple can survive demolition.
The hurricane also left its stained-glass “Good Shepherd” window virtually untouched, so it will be incorporated into the new church. “We want to have that continuity,” Mock said. “This was a historic site, but now we have to move into a new land.” .
PART TWO: Last Service, by Alyssa Schnugg, Charlotte Sun/How PDA has helped/How you can help!
You can e-mail author Steve Reilly at reilly@sun-herald.com |
