# St. Lawrence Arts Center

The Hill Arts or St. Lawrence Arts Center is a performing arts center and community space at 76 Congress Street in the Munjoy Hill district of Portland, Maine. It is located in the former parish hall of the former St. Lawrence Church, a historic Romanesque church that was built in 1897. In 2008, due to severe deterioration, the sanctuary of the former church was razed and the organization began planning to create a performance arts space where the sanctuary stood. The church property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

## Description

The Hill Arts stands northeast of the summit of Munjoy Hill, on the southeast side of Congress Street between Munjoy and Beckett Streets.
The center's facilities currently includes a 110-seat theater with state-of-the art equipment. And plans for the 400 seat theater are in the works.

### The Neighborhood and Community

The St. Lawrence Church is located in the middle of the dense, residential neighborhood of Munjoy Hill in Portland, Maine, taking up an entire city block. As were many churches before television, the St. Lawrence was the social focus of the neighborhood, hosting scout troops, Saturday matinees, public suppers and amateur theater. The building’s decline physically affected the entire neighborhood, which was also in a blighted state. The subsequent rehabilitation of the St. Lawrence Church has been accompanied by a broader, neighborhood-wide revitalization. Fundraising was challenging and donations, numbering in the thousands, have come from a community, grass-roots effort. Many of today’s patrons still come from the neighborhood and walk to performances and local activities.

### A Community Building Model: A Sum Worth More Than Its Parts

The sum of the St. Lawrence Restoration Project is larger than any of its three parts – it is more than just fixing an historic building, doing work in a neighborhood or building a theater space. St. Lawrence Arts creates a mutually dependent model by which these disparate social needs and interests support each other. The arts center gives the obsolete historic landmark a constructive and economically viable use while in turn the restored structure provides an aesthetically pleasing and affordable venue perfect for artistic expression. This model is designed to be long-term and self-perpetuating. The initial capital investment in historic preservation goes on to support the arts in providing not only an affordable artistic venue, but also an income-producing asset as theater revenues currently cover a large percentage of the St. Lawrence operating expenses. This capital investment subsidizes the theater operation and makes it possible for the St. Lawrence to realistically offer the venue at affordable rates and to diverse groups of artists and performers for well into the future.

## History

The local Congregationalists organized in the neighborhood 1854 to build St. Lawrence Chapel. Having outgrown that facility, the church was erected in 1897 to a design by New York City architect Arthur Jennings. The building was unique within the state for its combination of Richardsonian Romanesque and French Chateau elements. Maintenance suffered as the congregation dwindled in later years due to increasing costs and demographic changes; the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places in an effort to help preserve it. The congregation eventually dissolved itself in 1986 and de-consecrated the building.
The building stood empty until purchased in 1993 by a local resident. In 1996 she helped for the 501c3 non profit Friends of St. Lawrence Church the non-profit bought the building from the local woman for what she bought if for in 1993 The former sanctuary as demolished in 2008, and the parish hall was subsequently restored and renovated for use as a performing arts venue.