Sacred Heart Catholic Church Continues with Building Plans for Former School Site

0
1758
Initial sketch for a new parish facility. Sacred Heart Catholic Church.

Marshfield, WI (OnFocus) Sacred Heart Catholic Church continues to move forward with plans for a new gathering place for church activities.

A 6,000 square foot building will eventually be constructed on the former site of the Sacred Heart Catholic School, which finished demolition this spring. Once completed, the red brick facility will be able to accommodate about 200 people and host activities such as religious education classes, parish meetings, funerals, and meals.

While it has an initial sketch, the parish isn’t in a rush to build and will raise the necessary funds over the next few years.

“It’s not a huge burden not too,” said Father Keith Kitzhaber. In the meantime, education classes have been hosted at partner parish Corpus Christi, funeral services at the Eagles Club and American Legion, and church meetings in the rectory.

The building of the facility is the third phase of the parish’s Future Family Life program which saw the installation of new furnaces in the church, previously heated by the school furnaces, and the demolition of the 100 year-old school building. Already the fuel bill has dropped 75 percent.

“The school was consuming large quantities of natural gas with a very old furnace, and now we’re just heating the church with new furnaces,” said Kitzhaber.

After the school was torn down, the church allowed anyone to take leftover bricks for personal use before the pile was cleared away. Nikolai Construction donated additional work, cleaning up the area and replacing a few stones that someone had mistakenly removed from the retaining wall.

Once completed, the new facility will use a combination of solid and partition walls to make best use of the space. A hallway will connect the facility to the church building. As an advantage over the old school building, everything will be handicap accessible, not to mention free of asbestos and lead paint.

“We’re moving along,” Kitzhaber said.

Former Students Reminisce About Sacred Heart Catholic School

Sacred Heart Continues School Tear-Down Process

1916 Time Capsule Uncovered at Sacred Heart Catholic School

News Desk
Author: News Desk

This piece was posted by our news team! Contact us or submit stories at [email protected].