In late 2020, we were contacted by parishioners from St. James Episcopal Church on Broadway in north Knoxville and asked to study potential upgrades to the Parish Hall to improve and increase the church’s homeless outreach through their “Room in the Inn” program and their food pantry. Our volunteer on the project was Chad Boetger, AIA, with Barber McMurry Architects, the same firm which designed the Parish Hall addition in the 1990s.

At a meeting in December the design team learned about some logistic problems with the existing kitchen and serving line, the need for showers and laundry facilities and the need for an elevator. The team took this information and developed a conceptual floor plan, which has a new building addition to allow for expanding the existing kitchen, pantry, and food pantry storage. This expansion maintains the location of the existing oven and fire suppression system, but allows for a new food serving area to open directly into the Parish Hall. This will resolve some of the bottleneck issues that they currently have in the existing corridor.

The storage room at the back of the hall will be removed, allowing the creation of a new male and female ADA shower that are entered from the existing toilets. A classroom will be transformed into a laundry facility and storage which can be secured from the remaining church. The laundry area can have two washers and three dryers.

An elevator will be located in a storage closet that connects to the existing nursery; it will be located adjacent to the existing stairs and an exit door leading directly to the courtyard. The plan encloses the entire flat roof area on the second floor to create a new classroom.