New St. Mary’s Catholic Church parish center in Minooka opens

On Sunday afternoon, Roman Catholic Diocese of Joliet Bishop Joseph Siegel walked through the doors of the new parish center across from St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Minooka to pray over, and bless the building.

The building has a few items left to be completed and opening day for religious education will be Sept. 12. Construction began in September 2016.

After each service, St. Mary’s parishioners walked across St. Mary’s Street to the new parish center to gather in prayer and see the new building, but after the 11 a.m. service, Bishop Siegel took his place near the stage and asked all in attendance to gather around him as he read from the Bible and prayed. He then walked around the building and blessed each room with holy water.

St. Mary’s has experienced growth within its church community and now, with 1,400 registered families, more than 400 children in the kindergarten through eighth grade religious education program, children’s choir and Mass, multiple organizations and committees, the time was now for a new space near the church to house all of these events.

Father Tuan Van Nguyen said the parish council saw two needs for a parish center, and one to be on property. As he and many others from the church said, they wanted to keep St. Mary’s on St. Mary’s Street. So, instead of building out in another location, the church acquired the properties across from the church building, tore them down and built a new building from the ground up.

Van Nguyen said the first purpose was to get the religious education children back on church property. Due to space, the children had gone to local schools to have their classes, which created a barrier from the classes and access to the church to physically show the children parts of the church in which the lessons spoke.

The second reason for the need was Van Nguyen said he has seen growth and with only one place to gather, which was a small basement, there were limitations.

“We have so many organizations and groups within our church. This building allows us to come together, grow in the community, celebrate our faith and feel connected,” Van Nguyen said.

Church member Dave Clark was the liaison between the church and the construction crew during the building of the 12,000 square foot building. The main hall fits 250 people with tables or 400 with just chairs for a presentation and 50 more in the foyer for overflow.

From shovel in the ground to completion, he said, it was a one-year process. But the plans began much earlier.

In 2005, the church began a Seeds of Faith campaign to build a new church on a new site. But, once again, the church leaned toward keeping St. Mary’s Church on St. Mary’s Street, so the campaign switched to a Foundation of Faith in 2015, when the church was more in favor of a parish center across the street from the church, rather than a new site.

Parish council member Dave Conterio said he was on the committee to oversee the project and after several rough drafts, talking to neighbors to get the OK and making sure the building wasn’t too tall to take away any sunrise or sunsets views, the plans were drawn and executed. “We had good intentions,” Conterio said.

“The one main thing we had to decide was to build for today or tomorrow and we decided to build for tomorrow. We had a lot of meetings with parishioners to keep them up to date on what was going on so we could be as transparent as possible,” Conterio said.

The total project had a $5 million price tag, which included the purchase of the buildings on the parish center site, demolition, the building and the parking lot south of the center. They started with $3.5 million in the fund with the former campaign, so now the church fundraises for the last $1.5 million.

Clark said the project was much cheaper in some respects because the water, sewer, and other necessities were already on the site, but they did spend $90,000 on a storm detention underground under the parking lot.
The building houses a main fellowship room with stage, which can be used as an alter, nine classrooms, a large commercial kitchen and an office for the religious education program.

Parishioners also can use the building for funeral or baptismal meals, small wedding receptions and showers, and the parish itself can house its community events such as the cabbage and corned beef dinner or the French toast breakfast in a more comfortable and inviting space.

“This will help our parish to have more functions and allow the religious education students to be in a Catholic atmosphere. I am excited that all of the extra curricular groups have a place to call their own,” parishioner Jodie Dziuba said.

Van Nguyen said he cannot predict the future, but he has seen new faces walk through the doors of the church and he wants to grow.

“Now that we have a space, we want to invite people to be a part of it. We need to reach out to people and be active participants in the community, and now we have a new space to welcome them,” Van Nguyen said.