MINT HILL — Children of St. Luke Parish joined Bishop Peter Jugis and their pastor Father Paul Gary in recently breaking ground for the growing community’s new 21,000-square-foot church.
The rain cleared just in time for the afternoon ceremony on Oct. 9 at the church’s new location on Fairview Road.
After Scripture readings and prayers, Bishop Jugis blessed the site with holy water, then he and Father Gary led the large crowd of excited parishioners over to a pile of dirt and waiting shovels and hard hats. It didn’t take long for the dirt to fly, as the kids took turns enthusiastically tossing shovelfuls.
“The future is theirs,” Father Gary said. It was his idea to purchase the smaller shovels and make the children an important part of the groundbreaking. “The children had a lot of fun. They were sharing their shovels with the other children who were there watching. They had smiles on their faces; it was great to see. Their smiles were priceless.”
Father Gary offered prayers for God’s blessings upon everyone at the groundbreaking, the entire parish family and the community of Mint Hill.
Local dignitaries including Mint Hill Mayor Brad Simmons, town commissioners, and police and fire department representatives were on hand for the ceremony.
Simmons congratulated the parish community for reaching this milestone. “On behalf of the Town of Mint Hill and our board of commissioners … I want to thank you for allowing us to participate in your groundbreaking ceremony today,” he said.
“Many of us have been looking forward to this almost as long as you have, I think,” he said, recalling that he was serving on the town’s planning board when plans for the church got under way, from purchasing the land along Fairview Road to preparing the site for construction.
The groundbreaking couldn’t come at a more opportune time.
The faith community got its start in 1987, when Catholics in the area began gathering for Mass in a local movie theater and later a storefront. Three decades later, Mint Hill is booming – and so is St. Luke Parish, expanding from 300 families at the start to more than 1,500 families today.
Dedicated in 1995, the current St. Luke Church was designed to be a general-purpose facility for 400 people – more than enough for the parish in its early years. But the multipurpose building no longer meets their growing needs, and its present location on Lawyers Road offers no usable land for expansion.
So in 2019, the parish embarked on a $2.7 million capital campaign to help fund the construction of a new church on 30 acres close to its current location. Since then an open-air pavilion, sport field and rectory have been built on the site – and the building of the new church has been greatly anticipated.
The new church will initially seat 750 people, with the capability of being expanded to seat 1,273 people.
Total cost for the acreage, rectory and church construction projects is $13.3 million. To date, $3.2 million has been paid, with $3.8 million in pledges and cash on hand, diocesan officials reported. The parish plans to sell its current property and conduct future capital campaigns as needed to cover the full cost of developing the new campus and church building.
Construction of the new church is projected to cost $8.3 million and is anticipated to be finished in early 2023.
ALR Architecture PC is the architect, and Southside Constructors Inc. is the general contractor.
Cornerstone Campaign chair Jim Strauss said he is grateful for the generosity of so many who have made this milestone possible. “St. Luke Parish has been on a 34-year adventure, starting from attendance at the theater to now a beautiful dream coming true,” he said. “There has always been a ‘Spirit of St. Luke’ that transcends the physical place of worship. This parish thrives together. We are looking for the next thing to do to bring Christ to others.”
During the blessing on Oct. 9, Bishop Jugis noted that the church – a physical structure of wood, stone and steel – will provide a fitting home for the growing St. Luke community – the “living stones” of the Church in the Mint Hill community – to praise and worship the Lord.
“With His help, with His grace and with His blessing, in a few months or in a year we will all be back here to celebrate the dedication of the new church,” he said.
— SueAnn Howell, senior reporter. Lisa Geraci contributed. Photos by Patricia Guilfoyle.
