Deep Dive: St. Margaret's Parish

St. Margaret’s Parish in Mattydale, NY consists of 3 buildings, a Church building, a school building, and a two story brick building. This brick building was first built as a convent in the 1950’s, converted to a rectory in the 1980’s, and eventually converted to temporary space for parish administration in the 1990’s. However, since the late 2010’s the building has been vacant and only used by the parish for storage.

In 2023, a deal between the Parish and Cicero-North Syracuse School District to rent the former St. Margaret’s School building meant that the Parish must vacate the building and relocate to another space. The Parish and Diocese Facilities Office contracted Teitsch-Kent-Fay Architects, P.C. to assist in renovating the old rectory building to house the programs currently in the school. These programs include the local food pantry, parish offices, and faith formation classrooms.

Our team began preparing a schematic layout for the proposed renovations using the original building blueprints provided by the parish. After reviewing these designs with the parish and making some minor revisions, this layout was developed into a: demolition plan, new construction plan, and series of details such as door schedule, finish schedule, etc. With this information, the Diocese Facilities Team worked with our consultants to conduct an abatement survey, begin demolition, and start the reconstruction process.

Construction began in the late spring and progressed into the summer. In order to meet the deadlines of the overall schedule, the old school must be vacated no later than August 15 so that Cicero North Syracuse could get the building ready for the start of the school year. Luckily the work proceeded right on schedule, with the finish work beginning in July, and the installation of a new exterior accessible ramp completed at the end of July. In order to maintain this tight schedule, TKF worked closely with the Diocese team to select materials that we could be sure would be available in a timely manner.

Everything began coming together at the end of July, with the coolers and freezers for the pantry moved into the new space in early August. The Parish Offices were finished shortly thereafter, and the Faith Formation spaces were the last to be finished just before the building was opened on August 15th.

Since the opening, the Pantry Services has continued to serve the local community, the Parish Offices are up and running, Parish meetings have taken place in the new conference, and the day to day operations of the Parish are being served from the new offices. Faith formation classes began in the fall of 2024. It has been a delight to assist St Margaret’s Parish with this project and wonderful to see this previously underutilized building live up to its’ potential and once again serve the people of Mattydale.