Greetings!
I am pleased to be writing this letter to all my fellow parishioners on this very special occasion. It’s “Launch Weekend!”—and the official start to St. John Neumann’s long-awaited building program! It’s true, our “Building a Legacy of Faith” (BLF) project is off and running.On May 15th, the Archbishop has approved our financial application for the construction project, giving us the green light to proceed with our plans. Although we fell short of our ambitious fundraising goal, we raised sufficient capital to win the Archdiocese’s approval to move forward. Anticipated groundbreaking is in early December!
How can this happen, you may ask, if the fundraising goal has not yet been reached? Good question! We are continuing to raise the necessary money, but here is where we are with the project funding to date:
| Savings available Funding from past campaigns Sale of Seton Hall to SJN School Building a Legacy of Faith Campaign TOTAL | $565,000 $1,500,000 $470,000* $2,550,000** (80% of $3.2 million) $5,085,000 |
* Funds generated from the sale of a large portion of Seton Hall to St. John Neumann Regional Catholic School; actual proceeds to be confirmed at time of the project’s completion.
** We are allowed to include only 80% of the amount pledged in BLF in our application to the Archdiocese. We hope to collect 100%, however!
From the time we began our Building a Legacy of Faith campaign back on January 5th, Monsignor David P. Talley and the BLF Steering Committee advised everyone that we will build what parishioners’ contributions allow us to build. But build we will! The most feasible plan for the immediate future is outlined below. We will move forward now to do the following:
- Build the New Church: Still the BLF centerpiece, the new worship space will be our priority. Although the new church will have to be somewhat smaller in square footage than the original plan, it still will seat comfortably over 850 people, including the choir. This is approximately 300 more seats than our current church. As the number of weekend Masses is reduced, the larger seating capacity will allow us to accommodate the increase in the number of worshippers at each Mass.
- Finish a Portion of the Lower Level: The space below the new church will be completed in phases. First, we will finish the lower lobby, stairs, elevator, and restrooms. The rest of the lower-level space—primarily meeting rooms, brides room, nursery, and choir rehearsal area—will be left unfinished until additional funding is raised to complete the build out.
- Construction of the New Chapel: We plan to build the attached chapel as it was originally designed, at a later date when funds become available.
- Conversion of the Church to a Parish Hall: We will convert our current church into a parish hall when additional funding and/or resources become available. When the conversion begins, we believe that much of the project can be accomplished using volunteer effort and comparatively low-cost materials.
- Conversion of Lind Hall into the Lind Youth Center: As with the parish hall, conversion of Lind Hall into a new youth center will have to wait until funds are available. Volunteer labor and cost-savings on materials will help speed the project along once conversion gets underway.
For today, however, we couldn’t be more energized and excited about finally moving forward! The projected timeline looks like this:
- Architect completes “pricing set” documents – late June
- Contractor selection/pricing process is conducted– late June through approximately July 21
- Contractor is selected – approximately August 1
- Construction documents/pricing complete – early October
- Groundbreaking – early December
- Opening of the new church – Christmas 2009!
All of us involved with the Building a Legacy of Faith campaign are extremely grateful to our fellow parishioners who answered the call and pledged their financial support. Twenty nine percent of registered SJN families have responded with a three-year pledge. Your generosity resulted in the following project budget.
Project as defined above:
| Hard costs: Soft costs: Contingency fund: TOTAL COST | $4,854,000 $1,057,000 $364,000 $6,275,000 |
The difference between the project costs and the funding available is $1,190,000, which we intend to cover with a loan from the Archdiocese. We will continue our fundraising efforts as well. Additional revenue that we are able to raise, and that is not currently shown in our budget, will allow us to:
A. Finish more of the project,
B. Reduce the amount of financing required, or
C. A combination of the two.
On a final note, we invite participation by parishioners who have special talents and experience that would benefit this project. New committees will be forming as construction nears. Their work will focus on special areas such as sacred spaces, interior décor, facilities, and actual construction oversight. If you or someone you know might be interested in participating on one of these committees, please e-mail me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
On behalf of Monsignor Talley, Fathers Young and Armando, our deacons, and the Building a Legacy of Faith Steering Committee, thank you for the support (spiritual, physical, and financial!) and encouragement you have given us throughout our campaign thus far. We pledge to keep you up to date as we move our project forward, so stay tuned! We are about to witness the construction of the physical representation of our spiritual renewal here at St. John Neumann Parish. There’s much to be proud of and to celebrate as we continue together on this journey of Building a Legacy of Faith!
Sincerely yours,
Joe Creighton
Building a Legacy of Faith Steering Committee Co-Chair
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