St. Joseph church begins $1.5M expansion

St. Joseph Catholic Church is beginning work on a long-awaited expansion to aid both the church and the neighboring parochial school.

Officials - with help from general contractor Wirt-Flavin Construction Co. - broke ground April 20 on a $1.5 million multipurpose facility at the church, 1115 N. Campbell Ave.

The main feature of the 9,500-square-foot building, designed by Butler, Rosenbury & Partners Inc., is a large parish hall that can be used by the church as a community hall and by the school as a gymnasium. Other features include a full kitchen, education space and an adoration chapel.

"We're an inner-city parish, and we hadn't expanded our building in quite some time," said Father Denis Dougherty, noting that the parish had not undertaken a major construction project since a school expansion in the 1950s. St. Joseph School, which covers grades kindergarten through eighth, has enrollment of 129 students, while the church lists 375 families as members.

"We're badly in need of a larger gathering space, and we've been talking about this for six or seven years," Dougherty added.

Butler Rosenbury project manager Chris Swan said the project involves demolishing three church-owned homes and moving another, as the church and school are somewhat landlocked.

"There's need for the parish and the school to have additional space to do the programs they already have in place, and even with this there will still be additional needs," he said. "But this is a great first step for the parish."

Assuming the project stays on schedule, general contractor Wirt-Flavin Construction should have the new space complete and ready for use by spring 2010.

Dougherty noted that the church is still in the process of raising money. He hopes to raise at least $750,000 from parishioners, with the remainder coming from reserves and other donations.

"It's exciting - we don't really know where the money is going to come from, but we put our trust in the Lord," Dougherty said.

"We were committed to it before the downturn came, so we just said we'd go ahead with it."

Room for worship

St. Joseph's project comes on the heels of several other church expansions in the area.

Messiah Lutheran Church just completed the $2.2 million second phase of construction on its East Seminole Street facility, adding a new worship center, classrooms and offices.

Woodland Heights Presbyterian Church is finishing a $450,000, 3,500-square-foot expansion that adds a 300-seat worship center.

Fellowship Bible Church in Rogersville completed a $2 million project in December that comprised an 11,000-square-foot worship auditorium, a loft and coffee bar.

Despite the recession, and the potential fundraising difficulty, Swan said he's not surprised that owners of projects such as St. Joseph are choosing to proceed. He said low construction costs combined with favorable bids from construction companies looking for work make now a good time to build.

"They do recognize that the current bidding market is very favorable," he said. "They're striking while the iron is hot."