Queens Revival

Historic Church Undergoes a Conversion into a New Arts Center

by Alex Padalka

The new Jamaica Performing Arts Center in Queens has a classic storyline.

It's partly a story of redemption. In converting the abandoned First Reformed Church on Jamaica Avenue into a community theater, the project is reinventing a cultural icon of the neighborhood.

It's also a story of perseverance. Working on a 145-year-old structure presented a host of unique hurdles and opportunities that made the primary work - a basement expansion, salvaging of antique stained-glass windows, steel-beam reinforcement of a new balcony, and configuration of a state-of-the-art acoustical space - more complicated than new construction.

Originally built in 1859, the First Reformed Church was a Romanesque Revival structure featuring two asymmetrical towers. The congregation using the church moved out about 30 years ago. Without regular maintenance since then, the structure's slate roof, stained-glass windows, brownstone, sandstone, and terra cotta began falling apart.

To prevent the church from deteriorating completely, three local cultural groups - the Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning, the Cultural Collaborative of Jamaica, and the Black Spectrum Theater - formed a partnership to save the structure. The partnership coordinated with the city's Department of Cultural Affairs to spearhead transformation of the church into a performing arts center, procuring $12 million from the Queen Borough President's office to fund the project's budget.

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"The Jamaica Performing Arts Center is a fine example of how adaptive reuse can give a new lease of life to a historic building when its original use is no longer applicable," said David Burney, commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction, which is overseeing the project that started in May 2004 and is expected to finish by September.

The adaptive reuse design, drafted by Wank Adams Slavin Associates of New York, incorporates a 325-seat main floor, 75-seat balcony, new lobby, and an overhanging third-floor conference room that evokes box seating at sports games.

"The church had significance to the fabric of the city and the community, so we had to find ways to keep the building for the community and breathe new life into it," said Leonard Franco, principal at Wank Adams.

The center also hired Peter George Associates of Haddonfield, N.J., to help prepare a design that included theater-quality acoustics.

The building will be functional as well. Below ground, the design calls for a coat check, small lounge for refreshments, pantry, restrooms, dressing rooms, practice space, and an off-stage waiting room. There also will be a prop entrance leading to the stage elevator.

The design arranged for fitting all of those elements into a cellar that was originally only 7 ft. deep, requiring significant work to "raise" the ceiling by digging a deeper base. The project team dropped the foundation by more than 3 ft. to create the design's 10-ft. cellar.

To accomplish this task, the crew dug holes under the perimeter wall in a checkerboard pattern, filling in the first "squares" with concrete, and then repeating the process for the remaining squares to complete the new, deeper wall. It also excavated the main floor area of the rest of the basement to the lower depth.

That is where the project's largest setback occurred, said Edward Fuss, project manager for PMS Construction of New Rochelle, N.Y., the construction manager on the job. In an e-mail, he said the team determined that the existing footings did not extend far enough, requiring additional underpinning for three quarters of the building.

Installing the underpinning presented its own difficulties, requiring support of the first-floor structure and parging of the rubble wall with a stucco mix of cement, sand, and a bonding agent, Fuss said.

"Roof truss shoring towers were in the way of the underpinning and had to be resupported from the first-floor slab," he added.

The foundation effort lasted six months, wrapping up last spring.

Despite having a deeper space to work with, the team also had the hurdle of "coordinating all of the new M-E-P's in such a compact area," Fuss added. "The first floor being wide open with limited shaft space for mechanicals made it complicated to route and install required M-E-P risers."

As a result, the mechanical-electrical-plumbing control room and the systems winding through the building all squeeze into tight spaces.

Inside, the team had to install supports for a new second-floor balcony using steel structural beams, which in turn required new foundation support. A new versatile tension wire grid to support stage lighting will hang below the pre-existing attic.

The more recent focus has been on efforts to upgrade the attic to accommodate a new conference room as well as interior reconstruction of the towers. One will house offices with a view of Queens from three perspectives, while the second tower will serve as an elevator shaft, making the building compatible with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act.

Reconstruction of the exterior had to account for the church's landmark designation from city, state, and federal preservation bodies. The team is replacing the entire slate roof and, because of extensive damage, adding new supports. All of the exterior brick needed repositioning or replacement, Wank Adams's Franco said.

Meeting landmarks requirements was a core part of the redesign. Certain elements that would have been cost-prohibitive required extra negotiating, said Louie Rueda, deputy commissioner of the design and construction agency.

"All of the exterior will be reconstructed to comply with landmark requirements," he added. "The landmarks commission is pretty flexible. They work with us."

One of the inventive changes from those negotiations involves replacing the stained-glass windows lining the auditorium with acoustically insulated glazed glass panels, complemented with electronically controlled shades to filter out light. The team also salvaged enough stained glass to replace three damaged windows facing Jamaica Avenue and the lobby as well as the back window of the conference center and two smaller windows on the sides.

In a final design nod to the site's legacy as a public space, the team will extend the top landing of a stairwell to accommodate outdoor performances that will be visible from Jamaica Avenue.