LIVING STONES II:
BUILDING A SOUND FUTURE

It is often said that cathedrals are really never finished; they unfold over centuries with each generation stewarding the sacred in their own right. For Saint Mark’s Cathedral in Seattle, this is certainly true. To recount briefly the history of major projects in our first century:

• 1920s: raising funds and breaking ground on a new cathedral for the Pacific Northwest
• 1940s: raising funds to reopen the cathedral after the war and to retire the debt
• 1950s: construction of Cathedral House and Bloedel Hall as parish life center
• 1960s: installation of the Flentrop organ, a new narthex, and revision of the east façade
• 1980s & 1990s: a phased campaign to address seismic retrofitting, a new cathedral roof, and revision of the west façade
• 2010s: the Living Stones project sealing the building envelope, limestone cladding, replacing nave windows, and accessibility enhancements including an elevator and new front terrace

In 2020, drawing on the cathedral’s long-held commitment to creation care, the Cathedral Vestry adopted a goal for the cathedral campus to achieve net carbon zero emissions by 2030. During these intervening years, we have reduced carbon emissions by more than 30% on the cathedral campus through interventions such as replacing gas hot water heaters with electric tanks, upgrading the boiler control systems for more efficiency, and replacing failed steam traps in the HVAC systems. All good things, but to achieve net carbon zero emissions by 2030 will require replacement of the steam boiler that heats the nave and the hot water boiler system that services Cathedral House and Bloedel. Both systems operate on natural gas, but engineers have also informed us that they have exceeded their life expectancy, so now is the time to plan for replacing them with new energy-efficient electric systems.

For the past eighteen months, cathedral leadership has engaged in pre-design work to explore optimal solutions and scoping for a capital project that will address the work needed to meet our 2030 carbon reduction goal, and also to address other critical needs of the aging cathedral. The nave floor is crumbling, creating a safety risk, and the narthex and its mid-century bathrooms are in poor repair, unheated, and outdated. The Predesign Committee saw synergies: a new radiant floor heating system with slate overlay, and renovations to the narthex that create a better-lighted, integrated feel in the narthex along with modernized bathrooms. Safety, accessibility, and enhanced worship experience are the guiding principles for these efforts, along with our carbon reduction initiatives.

The Vestry authorized a feasibility study in Fall 2023, which revealed overwhelmingly positive support in the cathedral parish for a capital campaign to make such improvements possible. In December 2024, informed by the predesign concepts, cost estimations, and the campaign feasibility report, the Vestry approved launching a capital campaign in 2025, with a goal of $8.5 million. (By comparison, the Living Stones campaign 2013–2017 raised $10.5 million.) The parish phase will unfold in the first half of 2025, with diocesan phase, broader community and major gifts phases to follow, similar to our process for the Living Stones campaign.

In addition to the carbon reduction initiatives, the scope of the campaign focuses on enhancing the worship experience as noted above, with renovations to the narthex, bathrooms, and a new nave floor; and enhancing music endowments for cathedral music and Compline Choir. Moreover, Saint Mark’s has been offered a generous gift valued at $1.5 million for a new Renaissance organ, and we plan to integrate this installation into the capital project, which is anticipated to take place in 2028, assuming campaign pledges are typically made for three years, 2025–2027.

Cathedrals are never really finished, but each generation stewards the sacred spaces for those who will come after us. Those who have gone before did so with great faithfulness, and this is our time, to leave the legacy for those who will inherit the place after we are gone. As we come to the end of this cathedral’s first century of existence, may we be faithful in laying the groundwork for the next century, and by God’s grace, many more to come!