Westminster Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis

Westminster Presbyterian Church has played a real-life game of musical chairs in downtown Minneapolis, shifting locations three times in its 140-plus-year history. The congregation started small in 1857, just eight folks of Scottish, Irish, and Welsh descent. By 1860, they built their first church, but growth came fast, leaving them with a holy problem: not enough pews. In 1883, a bigger church was underway. Sadly, that second building had an all-too-fiery demise, leading the congregation to rebuild once more-this time at Twelfth Street and Nicollet Mall. The current church opened its doors in 1897, with a design cooked up by two Minneapolis architecture big shots, Warren H. Hayes and Charles S. Sedgwick. A century later, in 1998, the congregation gave the sanctuary a $3.5 million glow-up, restoring original design elements, boosting lighting and sound, and generally sprucing the place up.

But Westminster isn’t just about history-it’s also pretty slick when it comes to modern eco-friendly upgrades. In 2018, the church installed a stormwater reuse system so innovative it might make a hydrologist shed a single tear of joy. Rainwater from over 13,000 square feet of rooftop is gathered into six massive tanks tucked beneath the parking garage. Instead of letting it go to waste, the church puts that water to work-flushing toilets, irrigating plants, and even feeding a fancy fountain on Nicollet Mall. The system is estimated to save 122,400 gallons of potable water annually, and a snazzy permeable-paver plaza with a snowmelt system keeps everything looking sharp year-round. It’s a shining example of treating stormwater as a resource, and the thousands of people who pass by daily can check out visual displays to learn more. Who says an old church can’t teach a few new tricks?