February 4, 2010

First United Methodist Church holds services in new sanctuary

Photo by Graham Syed [enlarge]

Worshippers were met with an eye-catching sanctuary last Sunday as they attended the first services in the new First United Methodist Church at 180 Denny Way. The church had been holding services in the children's theater in Seattle Center after it sold its old location at Fifth and Marion in 2007 to Daniels Development Co.

(Editor's note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly said the First United Methodist Church downtown was sold to Nitze-Stagen. It was sold to Daniels Development Co., a sister company of Nitze-Stagen.

The new 500-seat sanctuary gets its shine from about 1,600 titanium panels, each 22 inches square. They were made by Architectural Titanium of Lawrence, Kan., and installed by Seattle's Kenco Construction.

Bassetti Architects designed the 26,400-square-foot church and an adjoining 143-stall concrete parking garage that also contains a 7,000-square-foot urban outreach center facing Denny.

On the sides of the titanium “box,” the church has brick where the administrative offices, Sunday school and meeting rooms are located. Brick was also used on the outreach center portion of the parking garage.

Abbott Construction was the general contractor, with a $16.5 million construction budget.

Other team members included: Seneca Group, development consultant; Coughlin Porter Lundeen, structural and civil engineer; Holaday-Parks, mechanical and plumbing design-build; R. Martin Electric, electrical design-build; JGM Landscape Architects, landscape design; LightWire, lighting consultant; Sparling, acoustical engineer; and Viking Automatic Sprinkler Co., fire protection.

Bassetti's team was led by principal Marilyn Brockman and project architect Lindsay Crawford.