St. Edna's hopes new parish center increases participation
Officials at St. Edna Catholic Church in Arlington Heights hope a new 13,700-square-foot parish center will help increase parishioners' participation in church activities.
St. Edna got permission this week from the village board to build a 29-foot-tall addition on the east side of the church property at 2525 N. Arlington Heights Road. A similar project - about 3,000 square feet smaller - was approved in December 2013, but it never got off the ground due to lack of funding.
Since then, the size of the church's registered congregation has dipped slightly to 2,928 from 3,077 families. The number of parishioners who actually show up for Mass and events has dropped even more.
"If you're a salesman and you start to see your sales drop, do you advertise so you increase your sales?" Mike Maloni, a member of the church's building committee, told the village board this week. "We want the ministries to look at this as an opportunity to dream bigger, to do more, to have more events to increase the visibility of St. Edna's as being a place to go for a dinner, a dance, a basketball game and theater events."
The proposed parish center would contain a 6,540-square-foot multipurpose room, a 1,475-square-foot performing arts stage, a kitchen, bathrooms and storage space. It would connect through a vestibule to the church's existing Hurley Center.
Maloni said the church wouldn't rent out the parish center to those not affiliated with St. Edna.
Though the village board on Monday unanimously approved the project - including a parking variation - trustees John Scaletta and Bert Rosenberg asked the church to try to secure a written agreement for overflow parking at Chicago Futabakai Japanese School on the west side of Arlington Heights Road. The school leases the building from Arlington Heights Elementary District 25.
The church plans to increase the number of parking lot spaces in its lot to 377 from 356, though village code requires 627.
Some neighbors have raised concerns about flooding in the area and whether the new building and parking lot could contribute to the problem. The church says it plans to widen its stormwater detention basin on site.
Construction is scheduled to begin in April 2018 and be complete by January 2019.