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By Tom Scheck , Minnesota Public Radio
March 14, 2001
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A prayer service at Cathedral of Saint Paul marked the beginning of extensive rehabilitation work on the structure. Workers will replace the cathedral's 60,000 square foot roof and refinish the buildings exterior. Church officials say the $35 million renovation will bring about some significant changes to the 85-year-old structure.
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WHEN THE 30-MONTH RENOVATION IS DONE, the most significant change to the cathedral will be the color of the roof. For decades, the green roof on the high hill has been a St.Paul landmark. Eventually, the new copper roof will revert to its familiar green hue after about 25 years in the Minnesota weather.
During the prayer service, parishioners in suits and dresses stood next to construction workers wearing jeans and holding hard hats. Archbishop Harry Flynn and Cathedral Rector John Estrem said prayers for the workers who will work on the project.
Eighty roofers and nearly 100 other craftspeople will start the work by placing 50 to 70 tons of copper shell on the main rotunda and the smaller domes that cover the side chapels. Workers will also clean the granite exterior of the building by shooting low-pressure water and glass beads at the outside walls, a process also known as microblasting.
Father Estrem says the church needed to start the project before the major damage was done to the inside of the building. "On one level it's quite bad. On another level, given the fact that it's 85 years old, it's surprising it's not worse. We're at a critical point in doing this. We don't have a lot of damage to the building. We have some that's noticeable and almost none that isn't noticeable. The structure is very sound but we're at the beginning of a very urgent period and the deterioration is happening quite rapidly," according to Estrem.
Estrem says the Catholic Church had been thinking about fixing the roof for the past seven years and finally made the decision after noticing some water leaking inside the church. He says the art work inside the cathedral would have been threatened if the roof wasn't repaired.
The original construction of the Saint Paul Cathedral started in 1906 and was finished nearly a decade later in 1915, just in time for the Palm Sunday mass. Archbishop Flynn says the 306-foot-high, granite structure became a fixture on Saint Paul's skyline.
"The legacy of Archbishop Ireland and all those who helped build this cathedral must be protected. The Cathedral of Saint Paul is not only a visible symbol of faith, it is a church of and for the people," Flynn said.
Some of those people attended the ceremony. Marge Kruse and Kay Michel are sisters who joined the parish in 1935. The sisters say the cathedral served as not only a meeting place for the parishioners, but as a common meeting ground between the city's blue-collar workers and the wealthy residents along Summit Avenue.
"It was the center of our life, this was the '30s and '40s where you didn't wander too far from home except by street car. The cathedral was not only the center of the development of our spiritual life, our religious life but also the center of our minimal social life," Marge Kruse said.
"There's some attraction about beautiful edifices and this is one of the most beautiful churches in the United States and probably comparable to Europe," Michel said. "This means something to people. This is their heart and soul where their life has been spent. Their weddings, their baptisms their funerals. This is life in this church."
Church officials say they've raised almost half of the $35 million needed to finance the project. The cost of the repairs is 23 times the original cost of construction. The project will take about two-and-a-half years to complete. The new roof is expected to last 100 years.
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