Durban’s cathedral centre expense justified

From Paddy Kearney, Denis Hurley Centre Project, Durban:

It is not difficult to sympathise with the questions raised by Andre Duchesne (Money to burn?) and Adrian Kettle (Keep facade) in your issue July 21 with reference to the parish centre at Durban’s Emmanuel cathedral. If I did not have information about the reasons for planning a new building on this site, I might be raising similar questions and objections.

It is important to know that projects based in the parish centre are already reaching about 4000 needy people each month. Though challenged by the social conditions of downtown Durban to assist many more, the centre cannot because of the severe limitations of a dilapidated building which could face the threat of being condemned if allowed to further deteriorate. In trying to provide suitable amenities for the many people who turn to the cathedral for help, and for the many activities of a rapidly growing parish, the archdiocese and cathedral first thoroughly explored the possibility of restoring the parish centre. It was only after discovering that restoration would cost considerably more than a new purpose-built facility and that the design of the parish centre as a school would rule out its use for the purposes we have in mind that the decision was taken to erect a new purpose-built structure on the same site.

This new building, to be known as the Denis Hurley Centre, will have four floors instead of the existing three and provide much needed additional space for its three major purposes of care, education and community which would not be possible in a restored building. An elevator will make it possible for elderly, infirm and disabled people to use the facilities on all four levels.

With regard to the possibility of preserving the facade of the building while completely changing the interior, this would not be possible because the new building will be of the same height as the existing one but with an additional floor. Moreover the facade, much altered over the 106-year life of the parish centre is not thought by leading experts to be of architectural merit. It is expected that the new building will bring hope to one of the most challenging neighbourhoods in inner-city Durban, enhance the beauty of Emmanuel Cathedral and serve the Cathedral parish and indeed the Archdiocese of Durban as a whole, for decades to come.

Surely it is wise to make such an investment for the present and the future? For more information about the project, visit www.denishurleycentre.co.za