The St. Albert's Building Project

A Couple of Plans In Mind

For the almost four (4) years of my pastorate we've been talking about a building project at St. Albert's.  The first plan was to construct a rectory in the old church/pavilion structure along with a storage room and to put a roof over our Columbarium.  We hired Hoffman Architectural of Searcy to draw up the plans and got a bid from Connell Construction of Searcy for $707,000 -- about twice what we were expecting!  It's very expensive to build in these times in which we live apparently.

So, we've had to re-vision the project.  I'm satisfied to continue living in our rectory located at 2 Harrison Avenue, about 6/10ths of a mile from the church campus.  The re-vision left an "open space" where the rectory would have been and the estimated cost of $410,000 was provided by Connell Construction--still too high was the general consensus.

Now we're discussing two (2) plans that we believe would cost us $300,000 or less.  The first is to move the present Columbaria under the new roof of the old church/pavilion and go forward with the plans for that building.  Some parishioners are upset about the idea of moving the Columbaria in which their loved ones are inurned.  This plan would include the demolition of the current Columbarium site.

The second plan is to demolish the old church/pavilion, roof the Columbarium site according to the architectural plans, and construct climate-controlled storage at our leisure.  The cost of the Columbarium project is about $135,000.

We would love to hear what you think.  Contact Fr. Paul or any of our Pastoral Council members to express your opinions.