HCH photo/Anna Weaver

RDG Planning and Design consultant Joe Lang explains the latest floor plan details to Bishop Larry Silva at an Aug. 10 meeting on the cathedral’s future restoration.

Plans proceed for a complete cathedral facelift by 2013

By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald

A continuing project July 14, 1827: The first recorded Mass is celebrated on Hawaiian soil in a grass hut on a rented lot in Honolulu. The priest was probably Father Alexis Bachelot. Aug. 30, 1827: Young King Kamehameha III (age 14) approves a royal land grant of nearly an acre to the Catholic mission on the present site of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. January 1828: The first Catholic church is built on the land grant. June 22, 1840: Bishop Stephen Rouchouze signs a contract for the building of the cathedral with coral blocks for $15,000. Aug. 6, 1840: The cathedral cornerstone is laid and construction begins. Aug. 15, 1843: The Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace is dedicated. Later changes 1910: The front of the cathedral is redesigned with a gothic entrance, which was later replaced with the present Roman columns. 1912: The cathedral receives a concrete floor. 1929: Original plaster on the outside walls is replaced with cement. 1940: Concrete buttresses, steel tie rods and steel trusses were added to strengthen the structure. More changes were made in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s to accommodate the liturgical renewal and the building of a new chancery and rectory. Compiled from the writings of Father Louis Yim and Sacred Hearts Father Robert Schoofs.

If designs, permits and funding go as planned, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace will have a complete facelift around the time of its 170th anniversary in 2013.

Bishop Larry Silva received this update at an Aug. 10 meeting with the planning and design team and cathedral building committee members. He also got to review a projected timeline for the project, hear an estimated cost of the renovation, see an architectural rendering of proposed changes to the interior and exterior of the church, and take home an enlarged color illustration of what the proposed design renewal of the historic church will look like.

“Everyone who has been here has left their mark on [the cathedral],” said Christian Brother William Woeger, a liturgical designer working on the project. “I suppose they’ll say the same about us.”

Also heading up the design and development of the project are Joe Lang and John Sova, principals with RDG Planning and Design based in Omaha, Neb., and Hawaii architectural firm Mason Architects. The group aims to complete its schematic design process by December and then move on to design development, or fleshing out the specifics of the project.

After that comes the drafting of building documents, followed by bidding and negotiation and finally construction.

Scott Ruppel, the chairman of the cathedral’s Planning and Building Committee, said that while the committee didn’t want to give an exact date for the project’s completion, it should take about three years to finish the renovation provided that enough money is raised to pay for it.

The committee also didn’t want to release the total estimated cost for the project. However, after hearing the estimate for the first time at the Aug. 10 meeting, Bishop Silva remarked, “It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be.”

Besides covering the renovation, the project cost includes hiring a fundraising consultant and a project manager, and establishing an endowment for long-term future renewal of the cathedral.

Humble materials

One contributing factor to the total renovation cost is the fact that the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace is built of “humble” materials, as Brother Woeger put it. For instance, the church uses a lot of wood, rather than marble, and its main walls are made of coral.

“[Costs] will never be better than they are now,” Ruppel said of the current pricing for construction, materials and labor. Because of that, the committee is hoping to move on the project while that is still the case.

At the meeting, Glenn Mason of Mason Architects said, “Overall the building is in good shape.”

The biggest repair to the cathedral would be replacing its galleries — the balconies at the right and left of the main space. Plans have been made to change and extend the sanctuary and sacristy, create a bishops’ or mortuary chapel, reorient its seating to face the sanctuary, and renew much of its interior details.

Updated security and safety measures are also planned, as well as video monitors on pillars on the second-floor galleries so that those sitting above can see what is going on below.

Also proposed is a reliquary chapel to house the relic of St. Damien, which was brought back from Europe this past fall. If funding allows, the chapel would be a small addition built on the mauka side of the church near where the present statue of Our Lady of Peace stands now.

The pavement around the cathedral will also be changed to better highlight the church property.

Sova and Lang estimate that the number of seats in the cathedral will remain the same or increase slightly after the renovation. There would also be more standing room along the sides of the church and a new rectangular baptismal font in the center.