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The Renovation of the Marion Street Building |
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Design Phase Following a planning and design process that stretched to nearly two years, the latest renovation of our building began in 1998. The Marion Street building has an interesting history, and is one of the oldest structures in the historic town of Athens, Alabama. The mission of Marion Street church of Christ is certainly not to renovate old buildings: however, due to the historical background of our building, its latest renovation is of interest to history buffs and local citizens. Consequently, this page will provide interested visitors with information about the present characteristics of this structure.
This is the way the building appeared in June, 1998, just prior to the beginning of the renovation project. The front facade is basically the same as when the building was converted in 1970 for use as a furniture store. In fact, most of the facade dates back to a remodeling of the building while it was still owned by the Methodist Church about 1900. The wall between the four interior columns is actually a curtain wall (non-structural) and was removed so the two inside columns were once again freestanding.
The architectural rendering below illustrates the changes. For the first time in over a hundred years, a central set of steps once again lead to a landing between the center columns, with the two entrance doors set into a recessed wall. These doors open into the entrance foyer for the new auditorium which is located on the second floor.
The blueprint-challenged reader may want to skip to the account of the demolition phase. For those who do enjoy reading floorplans, however, here are the first and second floor layouts:
While the resolution of these images is certainly not sufficient to read the text, you can tell that the ground floor consist of classroom space, while the upper floor is designed to facilitate worship assemblies. |
