A century-old Gothic church in North Capitol Hill has traded Sunday sermons for sound checks, but its second act as a concert hall comes with a haunting complication: the building’s columbarium still holds the cremated remains of roughly 20 former congregants. The former St. Paul Lutheran Church now operates as the St. Paul Center for Music and the Arts and has already begun hosting performances, with pews swapped out for individual seats and services replaced by rehearsals. Volunteers and board members say they are now racing to locate relatives and secure permanent homes for the urns before construction and programming move ahead.
From Pews to Performances
The Gothic-Revival structure at 1600 Grant Street hit the market last fall for $1.9 million and attracted interest from arts groups and ministries, according to BusinessDen. Brokers and neighborhood observers noted that the room’s acoustics and layout made it a natural fit for musical uses, and former congregants ultimately formed a nonprofit to keep the space available to the community. The church’s address and long service history are also recorded in the Rocky Mountain Synod directory.
The Columbarium and the Cremains
Along the church’s 16th Avenue patio sits a columbarium that was added in the 1980s, with space for about 117 niches. Roughly 20 of those niches currently hold urns. The congregation’s bylaws require that cremated remains be respectfully removed when the congregation disperses, and volunteers say that has launched a painstaking search for relatives and other responsible parties. A legal notice posted in March initially set a May 11 deadline, which mostly came and went without notice, so the center extended the timeline and set a new goal to close the columbarium by the end of August. At the same time, the arts group has lined up a full slate of programming, with about 20 concerts already scheduled and the first performance taking place in June, according to Denverite.
Finding New Homes and Who Pays
Volunteers say relocating cremains is not cheap, with a typical move running about $1,500 per urn. Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Wheat Ridge has agreed to accept some of the remains for $500 apiece, “which is way below what the market rate is,” volunteer Ron Hoffman told Denverite. The church’s foundation plans to cover the cost of moving and placing the urns, and the nonprofit intends to transfer remains in cases where families cannot be located.
What’s Next
Board members say that genealogical sleuthing, church records and family networks have helped identify relatives for several urns and that some transfers are already scheduled. Property records show that the building was transferred to the nonprofit for a nominal amount in January, and leaders say they are intent on honoring the structure’s sacred past even as they open it up for concerts and community events. For now, the columbarium remains an unresolved chapter as the center works to balance an ambitious performance schedule with its responsibilities to the dead and their families.
