Although the outside of the building has not changed much, do not let that fool you. Right, The remodeled apartment units come with custom cabinet work, tall ceilings and unique windows. The interior of the old church was stripped out and completely redone by Jim Hearn and Brent Stirek.

The congregation is gone, but the church lives on. Two local contractors have renovated a former church building into four unique apartments.

For more than 100 years, the corner of 20th and Lincoln streets, was home to the First Christian Church. Now it’s home to Lincoln Street Apartments.

First Christian Church’s first building was bought from a congregation in Kennard. It was moved to Blair and dropped in the middle of a cornfield that would eventually become the corner of 20th and Lincoln Streets, said Ronna Saylor, the church’s historian.

In 1918, that building burned to the ground and for two years the congregation had to share facilities with the Presbyterian church in town, she said.

In the fall of 1920, construction on a new building was started on the same site as the previous one. At first, only the basement was built and for more than 30 years the crowded one-room basement served as a meeting place, kitchen, fellowship hall and classrooms, Saylor said. Even the coal furnace that heated the church was located in that room.

An interesting story from the basement days happened when a new baptistry was bought. First Christian baptizes by full immersion, and one day the church had to do some baptisms, but the new baptistry had not yet been installed. The solution, simply enough, was to haul the baptistry onto the front lawn and perform the ceremony outside, Saylor said.

In 1951, construction began on the top part of the building which is still standing today. The stucco building was completed in 1955 and served as the congregation’s gathering place up until 2004.

On October 5, 2003, the congregation broke the ground for a new building at 1133 N. 28th Avenue. The old church had too many steps, was expensive to maintain as well as short on room for the growing congregation, Saylor said. On December 12, 2004, the congregation officially moved to its new home.

But that was not the end of the old building.

The old church was bought on December 15, 2004, by Jim Hearn and Brent Stirek, local contractors with a dream to give the old building new life under the new moniker of Lincoln Street Apartments.

The outside of the building was not changed at all, Hearn said, other than some paint and new landscaping and sod. Inside, however, everything is different. They gutted the entire interior from the floorboards to the rafters. Each of the four apartment units is unique, Hearn said. The two downstairs apartments are around 1,100 square feet and the two upstairs units are 2,100 square feet.

In the basement, the floor had to be raised 18 inches so that the windows meet the egress requirement, he said. All of the windows in the basement were replaced, but the upper half of the windows upstairs retained their yellow stained glass.

The steeple of the church, which once housed a large church bell, has been transformed into a unique, watchtower-like sitting room surrounded by windows connected to one of the units.

But the construction was not entirely smooth, Hearn said.

One of the problems they ran into was with the city over installing sprinkler systems, Hearn said. At first, the city said that they were not needed. Then, after the water system was already installed, the city decided that they were needed and Hearn had to go back in and install it, he said.

The toughest aspect of the whole project, Hearn said, was getting the contractors there on time, he said. They would promise that they would be there one day, then show up a week later, Hearn said. It seemed like everything had some sort of a delay, he said.

“I could write a book about the problems we had,” Hearn said. “But we are so close to being done now. I’m so excited.”

Hearn and Stirek had looked at another building in another town, but it sold before they could close on it, Hearn said. When the old church came up for sale, they offered a cash deal and closed almost immediately, he said. Since they are both contractors with their own specialties, they were able to do most of the work themselves and work on the project on their own time, Hearn said.

Hearn, who owns Express Plumbing did all of the plumbing while Stirek, who owns Stirek Construction Services did all of the countertops, tilework, wood floors and even built all of the cabinets. They worked together to design the floorplan, so no architect was involved, Hearn said.

“I would hate to think what someone would have paid if they hired someone to do the whole thing,” Hearn said.

There is already a waiting list of at least 10 people to rent the apartments, he said. There is an open house planned on Friday, November 11, from 2:30 to 6 p.m., for people interested in seeing the results of the old church’s transformation into spacious apartments.