New Mill Church Facility to Serve as Community Epicenter

Mill Church To Be Finished by Easter 2021

Marshfield (OnFocus)- North of Stratford on State Highway 97, 10 acres will be transformed into a community epicenter, featuring a new place of worship and community center for year-round recreational use.

The new location is a necessity for this congregation, as they have been leasing properties in Stratford and Edgar to accommodate their many families, but neither of the locations are well-fit for their 240 attendees.

“I wish we had Edgar’s space in Stratford, and Stratford’s space in Edgar,” Pastor Zach Burris said.

Burris has been preaching to Stratford’s congregation in the MidTowne Building since 2009 and began leasing Edgar’s auditorium in 2015.

“It’s hard to feel the energy with that many people in that large of space,” said Burris.

The refuge was a long time coming. After purchasing the land in 2015 and getting approval from the Stratford Area Chamber of Commerce, The Mill Church finally broke ground on the project in May of 2020 and is expected to be finished by Easter of 2021.

“This building tries to get out of the way and allows its dynamic congregation to thrive. If you fit it to the tools in how you shape the spaces and features, it then has the opportunity to do better in what they already do well,” Lead Architect Vince Micha said, “I’m excited to assist Mill Church to grow to the next level.”

After many interviews with architects from around the state, The Mill Church hired The Kubala-Washatko Architects out of Milwaukee for the design. Some of their most well-known projects include the Milwaukee Children’s Museum and the Milwaukee Public Market.

The project began with a fundraising goal of $1 million and they have obtained about $900,000 from fundraising by the congregation and hard saving.

“God blessed us with some great families,” Burris said. “They’re a gritty, hardy bunch. These are respectively farmers and blue-collar workers mostly so they really sacrificed.”

As for the building itself, the estimated cost is $2.55 million of over 11,000 square feet. The space includes a sanctuary with moveable seating for 250, a commons area, four classrooms also designed for a commercial daycare, an indoor play area with open community hours, and an artistic design that ties the building to the area surrounding it.

 

 

“We have involved some artists to stain pine plywood paneling that will be installed in a patchwork quilt type pattern on the walls of the Worship Space and Commons,” said Micha. “The church has a respect for its agrarian roots with inferences of the metal siding and metal roofing.”

Custom glass garage doors open to the south side of the building to blur the lines from interior to exterior, allowing the congregation to spill outside onto a covered porch.

“You can’t do this in a typical church but you can do this for The Mill Church,” Micha said.

As featured design concepts, the building will be partly constructed with authentic barn beams from a farm North of Edgar, and a number of items from the original Ulrich Feed Mill.

“An excellent way to incorporate a bit of farming history is the use of reclaimed timbers from a local barn,” Micha said. “The timbers will be used for the exterior porch columns and beams as well as the interior in the commons for the columns.”

The property outside will include trails over the 10 acres with snowmobile access and parking for the winter months and a warming kitchen.

This will be a church with fun and function, built with consideration not only for the worshipers but also for the community.

While the design came from TKWA in Milwaukee, the construction will be completely local with companies including Kulp’s Roofing, Trimpac, Comfort Systems, Integrity Fire Protection, Reigel Plumbing, Total Electric, Altmann Construction, and Marawood Construction.