Big changes are on the way for the Our Saviour community.
The Jacksonville Catholic Parish held a meeting Tuesday night to open discussion on plans to construct a Parish hall and create additional space for the grade school.
Vision Committee co-chair Joan Ryan told WLDS/WEAI News that building a Parish Hall has been “on the backburner for years” and now is a good time to see what can be done.
“We are looking at putting it on the east side of the church. We own a big empty lot on East State between the church and Illinois Avenue. We are thinking about putting it there.”
Ryan notes Our Saviour’s enrollment has grown 30 percent since 2009, so expanding the size of the school is a necessary action.
“We have some classes at Routt and we need to bring some of those back to the main campus. We want to start a preschool and we are looking at space for a new band room, science lab and library. We decided to do both things at the same time because it is such a big job.”
Ryan talks about the timetable ahead for the future projects.
“A feasibility study will start in January. That will take four to five weeks. After that we will start the capital campaign, which will last about six months. Hopefully by the fall we will know how much money we have to spend and then we can move forward.”
Ryan says there hasn’t been a capital campaign at the parish since the church was built in 1972. She estimates the projects could cost up to $7-million.
Construction plans have not been finalized, but Ryan hopes construction is completed by the fall of 2017.