Construction begins at Teahen Funeral Home

CEDAR RAPIDS - Construction has begun at a northwest Cedar Rapids funeral home that will include a major addition and renovation of the existing facility.

Teahen Funeral Home, 3100 F Ave. NW, is adding a more than 9,000-square-foot building that will house a community room on the first floor, seating up to 165 for funeral dinners or gatherings, a merchandise selection room and arrangement offices.

The lower level will include an embalming suite, preparation area and garages.

Peter Teahen, Teahen Funeral Home president, said construction should be completed by February.

'We will move the funeral home operation into that building for a couple of months,” Teahen explained. 'We will go through and completely gut our existing building and redesign the entire first floor. That will take us until the end of May.”

Teahen stressed that the funeral home will remain open through the construction and remodeling phases.

'That building will be completely separate from our existing building,” he said. 'Construction will be over each day before we begin family visitations.”

Teahen said exterior changes planned for the facility, including almost doubling the parking lot.

'That will leave us with about three acres of land behind the building, which we have been mowing for about 40 years,” he said. 'We are going to turn that into sanctuary gardens, which will be prairie grass and natural habitat.

'It will provide meditation areas and be available for the public to use.”

Teahen Funeral Home has been at the F Avenue NW location since 1978.

'We have done some interior decorating since we moved here, but this is the first major expansion,” he said. 'The contractor is hoping to put foundation for the addition in the ground by the end of this week.”

Teahen and his daughter, Elizabeth, are funeral directors. Another daughter, Megan Teahen, is a funeral director intern. The funeral home has an additional funeral director, Kyle Dumermuth, as well as part-time staffers.