FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — One of the oldest buildings near the University of Arkansas campus will soon be coming down to make room for a brand-new building.
For almost 65 years, hundreds of thousands of students have attended mass at St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church.
While the church building on North Leverett holds many memories, leaders at the church say they are ready for its replacement as the old one has served its purpose.
"The purpose to have an actual place to come, an actual place to worship, an actual place to coalesce around, center our lives. It has done that and more," Father Jason Sharbaugh, the pastor at the church, said. "Since things became more and more dilapidated, things were becoming antiquated to the point that [we were] starting to tap dance around not being as safe as we would like it. And it's just not functional."
The 65-year-old church is mostly empty now. Many things in the old church were moved out a few months ago. But, Sharbaugh said there will be some old going into the new.
"There's things from this current church and current buildings that we're going to keep, like a lot of our stained glass, we're going to put into church. The organ that we have is going to be in, other things that are important to people, that are emotional for them [or] their families, we will include in here or they've got some of those things themselves," he said.
He says the new $15 million state-of-the-art church will allow them to accommodate more students for mass and other activities as the student population on campus continues to grow.
"We're going to expand our church for seating capacity and students center for seating capacity and make even better use of the land that we already have that is going to increase, but our use of it's going to be better. So it's going to be lasting for ... over the next century," Sharbaugh said.
Sharbaugh says the congregation is excited to get into the new church.
"People are excited, although obviously emotional, you know, to let go of the things that we've all cared for," he said. "So it's a unique time since I was here as an undergrad ... it's emotional, but it's needed and people know that."
Construction work is expected to begin in February and take about two years to complete.
In the meantime, masses will be held at the Student Union on the fourth floor.
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