St. Leo Catholic Church

Building Plan

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Contents

Page Summary 3 Background 4 Murray, Kentucky 4 Renovation Needs 5 Capacity Needs 6 The Plan 7 Project Cost 12 Project Funding 12 Request 13

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Summary St. Leo is in the midst of a building program to increase seating capacity and enable us to better minister to the spiritual development of the parish and larger community. Our current Church has a seating capacity of 300. It has no Gathering Space, no restrooms, and no Blessed Sacrament Chapel. It is not fully handicapped accessible and does not embrace our growing Hispanic community. Our plan calls for:

Expanding the facility to accommodate 530

Adding a Gathering Space, restrooms, and a Blessed Sacrament Chapel

Making all spaces fully handicapped accessible

Modifying the exterior to better communicate that the building is a place of worship

Adding an Our Lady of Guadalupe devotional area to address the faith expressions of our growing Hispanic population

Transforming the worship experience for all our parishioners and guests The projected cost to make these improvements is $1.8 million. With exceptional parish support for the building plan, we intend to break ground mid-2010 and complete the project using a loan from the Diocese of Owensboro. We have relied on professionals for the architectural and liturgical design and fundraising. In addition, we have involved the entire parish throughout the development of this program to make it their project. As a result, we have an inspirational, yet efficient design and we enjoy tremendous support from our parishioners.

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Background St. Leo Catholic Church in Murray, Kentucky began in 1933 with the establishment of a Civilian Conservation Corps camp. With the camp came more Catholics, so a priest began traveling to Murray each weekend to say Mass under a pavilion. With the help of a grant from the Catholic Church Extension Society and the hard work of the pastor and 150 parishioners, the first Catholic Church building was completed in the fall of 1943. By 1963, the parish had outgrown the building and proceeded to construct the current, 300 seat church with a connected rectory. Shortly after that, a Newman campus ministry was started at nearby Murray State University, so the old church was renovated and used for Newman House activities. Since then, the Newman House ministry has moved to a property across the street from St. Leo, the old church was converted to parish offices, and a Parish Hall was constructed. Currently, the facilities include the church, connected rectory, parish hall, parish offices, and the Newman House. Today, St. Leo Parish is a vital, growing faith community with 420 registered families. It is the only Catholic Church in Murray, Kentucky, a largely Protestant community.

Murray, Kentucky Murray, the county seat for Calloway County, is situated in southwest Kentucky. It is eight miles from the Tennessee state line, fifteen miles from Kentucky Lake and the Land Between the Lakes National Recreational Area, and 125 miles from Nashville. The population of Calloway County is 36,000 with 17,000 living in Murray. Over the years, Murray has become a top retirement area in the nation. The development of Kentucky Lake, Lake Barkley, the Land Between the Lakes Recreational Area, and the growth of Murray State University have all contributed to its growth. In addition, as companies such as Briggs and Stratton, Ken Lake Foods, and Pella Corporation have located and grown in Murray, they have brought more Catholics into the area from the Midwest and North. These Catholic "immigrants" have brought with them a rich diversity of Catholic heritage that has added greatly to the parish and the community. We have also benefited from our growing Hispanic community who share with us a very old and sacred Catholic tradition. Murray is also home to Murray State University, a four-year public university with over 10,000 students. U.S. News & World Report rates Murray State as one of the nation's top public universities. St. Leo places a high priority on ministering to the many Catholic students at Murray State. In fact, when considering whether to expand and renovate the current church on our limited land or build a new church on more land less central to town, St. Leo’s walking distance to campus was a major deciding factor.

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Renovation Needs In February 2004, parish leaders held a full-day strategic planning event. One of the major conclusions from that event was that our growth and development were being hampered by our buildings and facilities. To ensure the problem was fully understood and that the parish at large agreed with this assessment, a parish survey was executed to get input from all parishioners. Parishioners were asked to rate every aspect of our current facilities for both how well the facilities meet our needs and how important the facilities are to meet the mission and vision of St. Leo. As shown in Figure 1, the parish overwhelmingly reported that our current facility does not meet our needs, with most aspects of our facilities receiving a rating of less than 6 on a scale of 1 to 10. In addition, all of the facilities were rated as being of High or Very High importance.

Figure 1: June, 2004 Parishioner Survey of Current Facilities

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Location in town

Inclusion of MSU

Social space

Classrooms

Comfort

Kitchen

Worship space

Seating

Parking/sidewalks

Audio visual

Setting/grounds

Baptismal font

Cry Room

Lighting

Décor

Church entrance

Restrooms

Music space

Prayer Chapel

Gathering space

Average "Meets our needs" Rating

Importance

Very High (7.0 to 7.9)

High (6.0 to 6.9)

Average Importance

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Capacity Needs Another consideration that emerged at the strategic planning event was seating capacity in the worship space. We estimated future needs in three ways. First, the 1.5% growth rate of the St. Leo community was projected to 10 and 25 years out. Second, estimates were made for the impact of a potential priest shortage, which would lead to fewer Masses in the region and more people attending each Mass. Third, consideration was given to the expected growth caused by the excitement created by a newer, larger facility. The results of this analysis are shown in Figure 2. As can be seen, normal organic growth will lead us to turn away people at our peak weekend Mass within ten years. The effects of a priest shortage and/or evangelization will cause us to exceed the capacity of the current structure much more quickly.

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The Plan From the beginning, we sought to develop a plan that provides the capacity and functionality we need while fitting our keep-it-simple culture and our limited economic means. To accomplish this, our Building and Liturgical Design Committees worked closely with an architect and a liturgical design consultant. After an exhaustive consideration of alternatives with regular input from the parish at large, we believe we have come up with the best possible design. The primary attributes of the expanded and renovated facility are shown in Table 1 below.

Table 1: Current versus Planned Facility Current Planned

300 person Worship Space 530 person total capacity Worship Space

No Gathering Space Formal Gathering Space with capacity for 216

No restrooms (have to go to the Rectory) Handicapped accessible men’s and women’s restrooms

No Blessed Sacrament Chapel Dedicated Blessed Sacrament Chapel

Baptismal Font is a glass bowl on wooden stand near Altar

Built-in Baptismal Font at main entrance to Worship Space with full emersion option

No flexible seating Flexible seating at front and rear of church

Steps at main entrance and Altar Entire facility is handicapped accessible, including Altar

Uninviting main entrance – long walk from parking, opens to busy street

Inviting main entrance, close to parking with covered walkway and drop-off

Plain, small oak Altar Larger, more inspirational Altar made of inlayed wood, black iron, and granite

Plain exterior, not obvious it is a Catholic Church

Commanding bell tower and exterior that communicate we are a proud Catholic community

Interior of cinder block walls and small galvanized steel-framed windows

Interior of smooth walls and slender, curved-top windows that let in 3 times the light

Simple painting of Our lady of Guadalupe with no place for flowers

Dedicated Our Lady of Guadalupe devotional area

Renderings of the expanded and renovated facility as well as photos of our current Church are shown in Figures 3, 4, and 5 below.

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Figure 3a: Rendering of Expanded and Renovated St. Leo Looking Southwest

Figure 3b: Photo of Current Church Looking Southwest

Note that the views looking northwest and southwest are from Highway 641, which is the main road through Murray. St. Leo is prominently located on Highway 641 and therefore has the opportunity to make a strong visual statement in the community. We believe our new design takes advantage of this opportunity.

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Figure 4a: Rendering of Expanded and Renovated St. Leo Looking Northwest

Figure 4b: Photo of Current Church Looking Northwest

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Figure 5: Rendering of Expanded and Renovated St. Leo Looking Northeast

A floor plan of the expanded and renovated facility is shown in Figure 6 below.

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Figure 6: Floor Plan of Expanded and Renovated St. Leo

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Project Cost The initial cost estimate made by our architect in September 2007 for the plan described above is $1,8 million. Because the plan requires the current, on-site rectory to be torn down, this estimate includes $100,000 to acquire a small house close to St. Leo to use as a rectory. In May 2009, St. Leo purchased a modest property about a block from St. Leo. The acquisition and refurbishment cost will be on budget at $100,000.

Project Funding To fund this project, St. Leo hired Kirby-Smith, a professional fund raising firm to help us execute a capital campaign. We knew it was not possible to raise the full amount in a single three-year campaign, so we made our plan to raise as much money as possible with an initial three-year capital campaign and to follow that with a second three-year campaign to raise the balance. Once we have 40% of the funds required for the project in hand, we intend to ask our Diocese to loan us the balance of the funds required and permit us to break ground. To date, we have received tremendous support from the Diocese of Owensboro for the project. Because we were unsure of how much money we could raise, the campaign began with a formal Feasibility Study. All 406 registered families in the parish were mailed a survey in late October 2007. To make sure nothing was missed, 42 families were also interviewed in person. Most surveys like this do well if they have at least 30% of the surveys returned. We were encouraged with nearly 50% of our surveys returned. This high return rate meant we could be very confident in the results of the survey. More importantly, the response demonstrates the strong interest by our parishioners. The survey started with several questions about overall opinions of St. Leo and the building plans. Overall, 75% of parishioners have a Very Good or Excellent view of St. Leo. A remarkable 87% replied that they feel Informed or Very Informed about the building plans, and 70% have a Very Good or Excellent overall opinion of the plan. When we include the Good responses on the overall opinion of the plan, the total jumps to an incredible 92%! Clearly, the parish is fully behind the building plan that has been proposed. When asked if they are supportive of a three year capital campaign with a $1 million goal, 81% of parishioners said they are Very Supportive or Supportive. The most negative response came to the question that asked how confident parishioners are that we can raise $1 million with 26% responding Not Confident. However, for every parishioner that responded Not Confident, two responded Confident. This two-to-one ratio indicates that, while the $1 million goal is a stretch, it is not unreasonable. According to our fundraising consultant, because of the small number of large gifts indicated in the Feasibility Study, we would only be able to raise between $650,000 and $750,000. When we suggested a $1M goal, he told us, “The data does not support a goal of more than $750,000.

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In order to raise more, you’ll need one or more major gifts – $100,000 gifts.” Unfortunately, the Feasibility Study did not indicate we would likely get such a large gift. Regardless, with confidence from the overwhelming support we were hearing from the parish and more than just a little stubborn insistence from our Pastor, we set the audacious goal of $1M. We knew we would not achieve this goal without unusually broad support from all of our parishioners. At the end of the pledge phase of the Capital Campaign, we had $957,000 in pledges! As can be seen in Figure 7 below, the distribution of pledges did not follow the typical 80/20 rule where 80% percent of pledges come from 20% of parishioners. For us, it takes the top 40% of parishioners to get to 80% of the total pledges. In other words, we needed far more medium and small gifts to achieve our result. This result is truly one of an entire community coming together to support a goal. It is a real tribute to the support and sacrifice by so many.

Figure 7: Pledge Distribution by Total Pledged and Number of Pledges

Request If you are a parishioner of St. Leo and have made a pledge to our program, we thank you for your support. If you are a parishioner and have not yet made a pledge or donation, we ask that you prayerfully consider a sacrifice to help us achieve our goal. If you are not a parishioner, but support our vision and goals, we would greatly appreciate any financial support you can provide. Regardless of whether or not you are a member of St. Leo, we ask that you keep the success of this important program in your prayers.