Overview of our Church Expansion       
With prayer and careful evaluation it was determined that an expansion of current facilities was needed in order to serve the long term needs of the Rogers-Hassan community. This expansion would include a Parish Church, Fellowship Hall and an Education Center. The purpose of this article is to summarize key decisions and milestones over the past two years.

Fall 06:  Domaine Forte, design consultant, produced architectural drawings showing two design options which were Gothic and Romanesque.

Feb 07:  The Gothic and Romanesque design options were presented to the parish in town hall meetings. Our eight essential characteristics of the parish were presented and discussed. These characteristics represent the vision the parish would reference all decisions on facilities expansion through out the expansion process. These essential characteristics are presented on a separate page insert in this week’s bulletin.

May 07:  With the approval of the Archbishop the Rogers down town site was selected as the future home of our facilities expansion including a Parish Church, Fellowship Hall and an Education Center.

Sept 07:  A number of committees were formed to support our expansion project.

Building Committee- One for each of the new buildings. This group will focus on function and layout only. Current Facilities Committee: This group will consider what needs to be done with the current structures to make room for the new buildings. Please note: The current St.Martin church will be integrated into the master design as a school mass chapel, wedding chapel and a funeral chapel. Development Committee: This group will focus on the preparation required to launch a future capital campaign. Executive Committee: An over-arching group to coordinate the activities of the different committees. This group is made up of the Pastor, Trustees and the chair person from each committee.

Sept 07:  The parish was requested to view and vote during the church festival on which design (Gothic or Romanesque) they would like to see our parish pursue.

Sept 30th:  The results from our design vote were announced. The Gothic design was selected by the parish for our facilities expansion. In a future newsletter we will present an overview of the Gothic design and its key design attributes.

Nov 07:  A recommendation was made by the Pastoral Council that we start with the construction of a Fellowship Hall and Church as our first priority.  If both cannot be built at the same time, then the fellowship hall should be built first.

Feb 08: Announced that the church has made a land purchase which brings our total land for development at the downtown site to 9.16 acres.

March 15th:  KKE, a well known architectural firm was retained to present findings on several different design options for the Fellowship Hall following a Saturday Mass. This meeting focused on the pros and cons of each design option. Valuable feedback was obtained during this meeting. A survey form was passed out for parish members to provide their individual thoughts on design priorities. These will be compiled so that preferences and priorities can be carefully considered as we move towards an updated design.