After three years of planning, some unexpected delays, and much perseverance, Summit Community Church officially broke ground on their Cressey Road multi-use worship building on May 23. The church’s large new facilities are being built on the west side of Cressey Road near the intersection with Narragansett Street, just across the road from the Masonic Hall.
For now, following the 2021 sale of their former building on Rt. 114 in Scarborough, the church continues to be based in rented facilities on County Road in Gorham, at the location of the former South Gorham Baptist Church.
Photo credit: John ErsekFrom Left to Right: Pastor Ian Wallin, Dan Gerrish, Pastor Travis Bush, Jim Carlson, Zan Cadman. The main speakers at the ceremony were Pastor Travis Bush, Shawn Moody of Moody’s Collision, Jon Smith of Great Falls Construction, Cindy Hazelton of Gorham Rec, and Dan Gerrish. Pastor Ian Wallin prayed to open the ceremony and Zan Cadman, Jim Carlson, and Dillan Hesseltine prayed over the land and building project to close out the ceremony.
The cost of the entire construction project is projected to be approximately $5.7million dollars. This cost includes the building itself, the site work, and the land purchase. The footprint of the Phase 1 building will be just over 15,000 square feet.
The current plan is for Summit to move to the new church building by spring 2023, possibly in time for Easter Sunday. However, they have also made contingency plans to remain in their current rented facilities until the fall of 2023, in case construction delays cause the move to be delayed until as late as the Christmas season of 2023.
At the groundbreaking ceremony, Summit staff thanked all the community members of their project team for helping them make the needed changes to the project plans and for their help with permit approvals. Team members include employees of Great Falls Construction, Ryan Senatore Architecture, Sebago Technics, R.J. Grondin & Sons, and Norway Savings Bank. They also thanked Shawn Moody and the employee-owners of Moody Collision for selling the land to the church.
Church staff have said that many of the pre-construction delays were due to difficulties that the church encountered with financing and permitting, amid the multiple changes they made to the size of the building and the facilities that will be included in it. Over the past two years, the church staff and the other members of the construction team and financing team have repeatedly been forced to revamp the project because of pandemic-related increases in the price of materials and labor costs.
Photo credit: John ErsekBasically, as costs went up, the church had to shrink the size of the building, as well as make the decision that the planned community gymnasium and the worship space would need to be combined into one large room (at least initially). The new building will still include space for a daycare program, as the church continues to see that service as helping to meet a major need in the Gorham area. In phase 1, the gymnasium will double as the worship space on Sundays, and the daycare space will double as the children’s ministry classrooms.
So far, the Gorham Recreation Department has had some preliminary discussions with the church about using the gymnasium space for pickle ball, and as a space for adults to walk laps during winter. Gorham Rec has indicated the space could also be used an extra basketball court for practices and games that they host.