FAYETTEVILLE — St. Joseph Church is poised to begin construction on its latest addition — a family life center for use by the parish and its school.
The Norm and Caroline DeBriyn Family Life Center has been scaled back a bit from the original plans to allow the parish to go forward. Two years ago, the parish launched what was to be a four-year capital campaign for a center estimated to cost about $5.7 million. In August pastor Father John Antony reactivated the core team and asked them to modify the Phase II plan presented to the parish in 2008 to reduce the cost of the project. Town hall meetings were held in October and November to present the building plan to the parish.
“We’ve been able to cut some things out — cut the scope down to about a $3 million project,” said Brian Wood, who serves as co-chairman of the parish core team along with Mark Breden.
“We’ve done our best to cut down on the cost of everything. I think we may have cut down a couple of rooms we didn’t absolutely have to have, and we’ve had some changes with layout of everything to cut costs,” Wood said.
“People have come through. Father John has done a great job of pushing it through,” he added.
The parish is scheduled to meet with diocesan officials later this month in hopes of gaining final approval. Once that approval is in hand — and with a final push for pledges this month — the next step is construction. Wood said the parish hopes to begin construction in March with a scheduled completion date of December.
Paul Warren, parish business manager, said pledges or other assets committed to the project must total at least 80 percent of the full cost before the diocese will approve building plans. For the DeBriyn center, that’s $2.4 million.
“We’re within a day or two or three” of reaching that goal, Warren said in a phone interview Jan. 5. Of course, he added, “We want $3 million.”
The capital campaign ends December 2012 when all pledges must be collected. If there’s any debt left at that point, the parish could do a debt relief program or use building support funds to pay it off, Warren said.
The center as it is now planned will still include a gymnasium, which Wood said should be used for many things, including large meetings, wedding receptions, fundraisers or anything the church or school might need.
There will also be six classrooms, including a band/choir room and an art room.
The additional classrooms will be needed if the school is to add eighth grade. Currently, the parish school includes kindergarten through seventh grades.
Wood said the public school system plans to move ninth grade to the high school in 2015. It would be nice for St. Joseph to expand in conjunction with that change so students could move directly to high school, he added.
In the mean time, the additional classrooms are needed for the growing parish religious education program, Wood said. “There’s just not enough room.”
St. Joseph moved from its former location near the city’s center in 2002 to a larger site on the east side of town into a new building housing both the school and the church. Since that move, parishioners have been eager for a separate sanctuary. The DeBriyn Family Life Center is expected to be the final construction project before the sanctuary is built.
The center was named for long-time parishioners, Norm and Caroline DeBriyn. Norm DeBriyn is the acclaimed former University of Arkansas baseball coach and currently studying to become a deacon, and Caroline DeBriyn taught in the Springdale public schools.
