Rochester funeral home ready to open new reception hall

Jan. 16—ROCHESTER — To better support how modern families celebrate their loved ones' lives, a 113-year-old Med City funeral home is opening the doors of a new reception hall.

After several months of construction, family-owned Macken Funeral Home and Cremation Services is ready to open

a new 7,648-square-foot reception hall

on its campus at 1105 12th St. SE at the intersection of 11th Avenue and 12th Street.

The new event hall is located to the north of Macken's River Park Chapel. The two separate structures are connected by a hallway.

"Funerals have become more social. Nowadays it is all about the celebration of life. We can see that on the horizon. We're trying to change with the times," said co-owner Tim Macken in March of 2022. "It dawned on us that our current room just isn't big enough ... plus we needed more parking, so we decided to do this."

The new reception hall can accommodate a crowd of up to 200. The design connecting it to the chapel means families won't need to go outside to transition from the funeral service to the reception.

"Families can have their whole celebrations there, if they choose. We are listening to people, so we added this to give families more options," said Peter Macken, the fourth-generation of the Macken family to serve as the director of the funeral home.

This is the latest update for the long-time Rochester funeral home. In 2016, it built a new location in Byron. Macken built the River Park Chapel 2010 for services to accommodate families without a home church.

Dan Macken launched what would become Macken Funeral Homes in Rochester in 1909. It is owned by the founder's grandsons, Tim and Dan Macken.