New St. Mary Magdalene Building

All-powerful and all-merciful Father, You have created all things through Your Son, And have made Him the unshakable foundation of Your Kingdom.
Through the gift of Your eternal wisdom, Grant that our efforts to build the Parish of Saint Mary Magdalene, For Your glory and our own well-being, may progress day by day to its successful completion.

We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Saint Mary Magdalene – Pray for us.

What are the various challenges facing St. Mary Magdalene Parish?

St. Mary Magdalene is facing the following challenges:

  • limited seating for Sunday Masses (2 Masses are standing room only on a regular basis)
  • not enough classroom space for religious education classes (currently 3 classes are held in the back portion of the multipurpose building and are separated by dividers)
  • every staff member shares an office with another employee or volunteer (with the exception of Fr. Will)
  • limited meeting spaces for various parish ministries
  • lack of quiet space for parishioners to pray

What is St. Mary Magdalene building?

We are building a 7089 square foot building. Included in this building are:

  • front desk reception area
  • 10 staff offices
  • conference room
  • staff workroom
  • office storage room
  • staff break room
  • 6 cubicles for volunteers
  • chapel sacristy
  • 100 seat daily Mass and Adoration chapel

What is St. Mary Magdalene renovating?

After the completion of the new building, St. Mary Magdalene will be renovating the current office space to make room for four additional meeting spaces. These meeting spaces will be used for religious education classes and parish ministries. In addition, we will be renovating the back classrooms of the multipurpose building in order to make more seats for Sunday Masses. We will be removing the utility closet in front of Classroom C to make 2 additional rows of seats. We will be removing Classroom B (currently used as a cry room for Sunday Masses) to place rows of chairs all the way to the back of the multipurpose building. We will be transferring the windows from that classroom to Classroom C and will place seats inside to make it our new cry room for Sundays. These renovations should provide us with an additional 50-60 seats for Sunday Mass.

Why build this building and make these renovations?

This building project solves all of our immediate needs. It expands seating for Sunday Masses. It gives us a space designated solely for Mass, prayer and Adoration. It provides our office staff and volunteers with an appropriate space to perform their important work for the Church. It provides adequate space for religious education classes and ministry meetings.

What is this going to cost and will we have to borrow money to pay for it?

The new building and renovations together will cost the parish approximately $1.5 million. We have over $1.5 million in our building fund. Thus, we will not need to borrow any money to build and renovate. The parishioners of St. Mary Magdalene have already paid for this building through generous tithing.

How long is it going to take?

The entire process to build and renovate is estimated to take anywhere between 6-8 months.

How does this building fit into the overall plans of St. Mary Magdalene Parish?

This building was already included in St. Mary Magdalene’s Phase II building plans (Phase I being the construction of our current multipurpose building). Phase II plans include all of the permanent Church facilities. Essentially, we are moving into part of Phase II of our overall building project. Instead of waiting until we have all of the resources for Phase II, we are moving ahead with the part of Phase II that we can afford in the present moment that addresses our current needs.

When are we going to build the Church?

Once we have begun construction on the new building, I will write a letter to Bishop Olmsted requesting permission to begin a capital campaign for the new Church. As a part of this process, we will need to do a feasibility study to figure out how much the Church will cost and how much we will need to raise to start construction on it. This a multi-step and multi-year process that would be beneficial to begin as soon as possible.

Why aren’t we moving forward with the actual Church right now?

As mentioned in the previous question, in order to build the Church, we will first need to perform a feasibility study. This feasibility study will tell us how much money we can raise in a certain amount of time. Once this information has been gathered, the diocese will then tell us how much money we need to raise to move forward with the actual Church. A permanent Church will cost millions of dollars. Thus, between the feasibility study and the raising of funds, we are looking at a multi-year capital campaign process in order to make the permanent Church a reality. We could save our $1.5 million and begin the process of acquiring a permanent Church. However, although a permanent Church is the big picture, we have immediate pressing needs that would not be resolved by this approach. In fact, none of the pressing needs mentioned at the beginning of this Q and A document would be solved by this approach.

Why aren’t we moving forward with a school now?

Although a school is also in the overall plans of St. Mary Magdalene Parish, it was always considered to be Phase III of the building plans. A permanent Church has always been the priority. To move in the direction of the school prior to the Church would be a break in the traditional plans of St. Mary Magdalene Parish.

In addition, although we are a parish of many young families, we would still need to do a feasibility study for the school. Catholic Education is expensive and we would need to make sure that our parish could sustain such an endeavor. The fact that we have many young families does not necessarily mean that all of our families can afford the cost of Catholic education for their children. Also, many of our parish families already send their children to St. Mary-Basha, St. Timothy, St. John Bosco, Christ the King, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, and Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic elementary schools. Some of these schools are experiencing a decline in enrollment. It would also be important to ask whether or not it would be beneficial for Catholic education in the East Valley for St. Mary Magdalene to build a school right now. What impact would our school have on all these other schools?

Finally, although a school would offer us space to have religious education classes, it would not solve any of the other immediate challenges mentioned in the beginning of this Q and A document. It is also prudent to mention here that $1.5 million is likely insufficient funds to build a school. We would need to borrow money to build a school.