Saint Pauls Church seeks $82,000 from Newburyport for parish hall roof

Saint Pauls Church asked the Newburyport Community Preservation Committee for an $82,000 grant to replace the parish hall roof and preserve a building the presenter said has anchored the city for more than 100 years.

"We've always been a community resource," Stuart Tuthill, who identified himself as representing Saint Pauls Church, told the committee. He said the church hosts meals, twelve-step meetings and other community services that bring about 900 to 1,000 people through the campus each week.

Tuthill said the parish hall roof is more than a century old and showed committee members photographs of missing and fractured slate. He presented two contractor bids: one from a slate roofer recommended by a local firm at about $185,000 and a lower bid near $110,000 from a synthetic-roof product contractor. He told the committee that while the synthetic product (DaVinci) carries a 30-year guarantee and would be less expensive, slate can last 100 years and better preserves the historic streetscape.

Committee members pressed on durability and preservation conditions. A committee member noted Saint Pauls would need a perpetual preservation restriction on the parish hall, and Tuthill said the chapel next door already has such a restriction and the church would accept similar protections for the hall.

The committee did not vote on the grant request; members asked clarifying procurement information and said they would consider the application during deliberations scheduled for March 19.

The committee requested a breakdown of the most recent January proposal (line items for structural versus cosmetic work) before final deliberations.