Plans are shaping up for construction of a new home for St. Patrick’s Catholic Church at the intersection of College Road and Valley View Drive.
Architectural firm Clark Collaborative 3 has designed a 26,000-square-foot structure that is expected to cost $6 million to $6.5 million, said the Rev. Glen Wilwerding, pastor.
The church’s current facility at 223 Harmony St., dedicated in 1926, will need a variety of repairs and upgrades in the coming years, Wilwerding said, and members park in a lot across the street owned by CHI Health Mercy Hospital. In the next two years, part of the parking lot will become the home of the Charles E. Lakin YMCA.
The new church will be larger and more accessible than the current building, Wilwerding said. The sanctuary will seat 500, up from the current capacity of 325, and the parish hall can seat as many as 368 people.
The parking area will hold about 250 stalls, with possible expansion to 293.
St. Patrick’s was founded in 1924, although other churches had previously stood on the same property. Its current facility was assembled in 1925 from stones that had once paved Broadway and was dedicated in 1926.
The project has been a long time coming. The church bought 12 acres on State Orchard Road in 2007 and originally intended to build there. But the hilly terrain would have posed some challenges, so the church later sold that land and, in January 2014, bought the 10 acres along Valley View where it now plans to locate.
HGM is currently conducting a site survey, which got a late start because of all the rain Council Bluffs has received this spring, Wilwerding said. As a result, the groundbreaking is still a ways off.
“The soonest we could start would be late fall,” he said. “We don’t want to jump the gun – we want to get it right.”
Nearly two months after the projected opening date, the Rev. Glen Wilwerding will open the newly built St. Patrick’s Catholic Church tonight for an open house and live music and Mass this weekend.
Replacing the longtime church on Harmony Street, Wildwerding said the parish’s new 29,000-square-foot, handicap accessible home will have a larger seating capacity of up to 450 people, compared to the 325-seat capacity at the former church.
In addition, the new church will also feature live-recorded mass and funerals, accessible online for people who cannot make it to the church.