First United Methodist Church – Plymouth, IN

Easterday Construction Co., Inc. has completed several projects for the First United Methodist Church in Plymouth.  In 1999 we completed a remodel of the Church Sanctuary.  This was completed as a Partnering project with the Church.  B. A. Martin Architects, P.C. was the designer on the project.  This Church Building Committee representatives were Mr. Art Jacobs and Mrs. Jim (Bonnie) Yeazel.

The Sanctuary remodel included painting, new carpet, safety railings on the balcony and miscellaneous improvements.  We replaced existing light fixtures and added accent lighting.  We also did extensive remodeling in the basement, including changing and improving rooms.  On the exterior, some tuckpointing was done as well as the addition of storm windows over the existing stained glass.  This was done to add insulation as well as to protect the glass.

In 2004 we completed the installation of an elevator in Community Building.  This project was completed as a Design/Build project.  We again used B. A. Martin Architects, P.C. as the Architect, though in this instance he worked under us.  The Church didn’t want just a chair lift, they wanted a fully functional elevator.  The basement of the building is used as a community room for various Church functions as well as by organizations throughout the community.  The third floor has another community room used by youth in the Church.

The initial discussion on this project began with the idea of building an elevator on the east side of the Community Building.  When we reviewed the building and the site, we determined installing the elevator on the east side would cause them to lose parking spaces.  The elevator would enter through existing classrooms causing them to lose the use of those rooms.  We determined that there were closets of sufficient size adjacent to the south entrance lined up on all three floors.  We broke through all three floors as well as the roof in order to create the elevator shaft.  We ran into several unknowns including asbestos pipe insulation and hidden infrastructure lines beneath the basement floor.

In the end, we helped them create a fully functional commercial elevator that served all floors.  We modified the entrance, including the construction of new accessible ramps and railings as well as automatic doors so that the main entrance is accessible.

In 2006 we replaced the chairlift that serves the sanctuary.  This was the replacement of the existing chairlift.  It was becoming difficult to get parts and code requirements had changed.  We removed the existing chairlift, revised the shaft to fit the new lift.  We corrected the code issues, painted and generally cleaned up the installation.