A downtown Provo church that has spent six years patching roofs, shoring up crumbling stucco and rescuing a century-old pipe organ says it still has a long way to go before its historic campus is fully restored. Leaders of Provo Community Congregational United Church of Christ, located along University Avenue, say fundraising has reached only about 10% of the project's goal, even as the congregation marks 135 years since its founding.
The update came as the church celebrated its anniversary, according to KSL NewsRadio, which reported that the congregation has been undergoing renovations for the past six years and that church leaders say they are still only about 10% of the way to their goal. The church was founded as Provo Congregational Church in 1891, per the same report, and later united with the local Methodist Episcopal congregation. A separate KSL News report on the restoration effort, written by Joe R. Wirthlin Jr., noted the church is raising funds for a project expected to cost more than $10 million, and that the building needs updates to its electrical, plumbing, heating, cooling and safety systems.
Decades of Patchwork Before a Full Overhaul
The church's current sanctuary dates to 1956, according to the church's own fundraising page, while the adjacent Meno Trope Hall was built in 1923 and dedicated in the spring of 1924 in the Spanish Colonial Revival style, as detailed by the Herald Extra. The building was named to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022, according to KSL.com, which also reported the stucco exterior on both buildings has deteriorated significantly.
The restoration effort formally began with a roof-breaking ceremony on Dec. 16, 2021, kicking off the first phase of the project, according to Deseret News. Work on the roofs began that December and was completed in late spring of 2022, the church's website states. At the time of the roof-breaking, the community had raised about $600,000 and hoped to raise another $1.4 million for windows and other repairs, Deseret News reported; church leaders at that point said they hoped to raise $2 million overall for the restoration. By 2022, a separate fundraising push called Keeping the Faith in Downtown Provo was described as seeking $8 million for renovations and an expansion, according to KSL.com's earlier coverage — figures that reflect how the project's scope and estimated cost have shifted over the years of fundraising.
A Rescued Organ and a Rejected Demolition
Rather than tear the aging buildings down, church leaders chose to restore and expand them. Some developers who were approached offered to demolish and rebuild the church, but that was not what church leaders wanted, said Dave Lewis, the church's council moderator, music director and organist. Lewis has said many residents and visitors tell him they have never been inside the church at all.
Central to the restoration plan is an 1892 pipe organ with 45 ranks that was rescued in 2022, according to the Keeping the Faith Cornerstone Restoration Project page. The instrument was offered to the Provo congregation by the First Congregational Church of Salt Lake City, and church and community members raised $50,000 to move and store it. Plans call for the organ to eventually sit where the existing fellowship hall now stands, inside an expanded sanctuary chancel. The project also calls for a new fellowship hall and kitchen and a bell tower equipped with an elevator, the Cornerstone page states — restoring a feature the church lost decades ago when its original bell tower was removed during the 1956 construction.
Matching Grant and a Multi-Phase Plan
Provo awarded the church a matching grant through the city's Certified Local Government Program, according to KSL.com, prompting the congregation to launch a community-driven fundraising effort to collect money the grant could match. The outlet described the broader effort, known as the Cornerstone Restoration Project, as a multi-phase initiative involving structural improvements and the expansion of the church into a community center. City leaders have also worked with the church to help preserve and restore the historic building.
Architectural renderings of the restored and expanded spaces were released in May 2023, according to the church's website. A separate campaign described on the Herald Extra sought 100 donors to raise $100,000 by the end of that year for restoration needs tied to the aging Meno Trope Hall. Lewis has said the goal is for the renovation to complement rather than replicate the historic building, honoring its character while updating it for modern use.
Volunteers from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and other Provo faith communities have pitched in to clean, repair and care for the property throughout the long process. For Lewis, the stakes go beyond brick and stucco. He has said the restoration is meant to preserve a place for worship, music, art, interfaith friendships, service and belonging — even as the congregation works to close the gap between what it has raised and what the project still requires.
