Jesus Christ: Yesterday, Today, and Forever ~
I want to bring you up to speed on some parish family property items.
The first is a reminder that as part of Partners in the Gospel, the Archdiocesan initiative to restructure the Church in Western Washington, the three communities of Columbia River Catholic will be suppressed and reestablished as one parish. That will probably happen for us before the end of 2027. When that happens, we will not be called Columbia River Catholic, or Holy Redeemer, or St. Thomas Aquinas, or Star of the Sea; but one new name that we will participate in choosing in the Fall of 2027. From that time on and beyond, we will identify ourselves as “Parish X,” with campuses in Vancouver, Camas, and Stevenson, each called Parish X. Besides the new name, the only other thing we know for certain is that our properties and finances will become one legal entity, not three as things are now. For the most part, the buildings on the three properties will continue to be used as they are now, with some changes as we seek greater efficiency and less redundancy of ministries and resources. I don’t foresee the need to add buildings or property to our campuses at St. Thomas or Star of the Sea, but that’s not true at Holy Redeemer. Holy Redeemer’s campus doesn’t have the buildings it needs to do the things we would like to do. The rest of this pastor’s column will be dedicated to our campus at Holy Redeemer.
Two new buildings we would love to see at Holy Redeemer would be a new dedicated parish center where the current one stands (think Marian Hall at St. Joseph Parish), and a multipurpose building on the south lawn that could house parish offices and classrooms. Neither will happen anytime soon. Recently, we had a couple of estimates done as to the price of such buildings and each came in at between $10-12 million. Just to afford one of those buildings we would have to conduct two separate five-year capital campaigns. If we got permission to start one of those capital campaigns next year, it would not be until the mid-2030’s that we could possibility have raised enough money to take out a multimillion-dollar loan to break ground. In the meantime, Holy Redeemer is still short of the space necessary to host parish-wide social events in the parish center, or to accommodate all our staff in one building, or to provide the classroom space for the hundreds of kids in our programs. So, in the near term, we are pursuing some quick fixes to hold us over until we can get those two buildings built over the next ten to thirty years.
The first fix is to purchase another house adjacent to Holy Redeemer’s campus. I have approached the owner of a house whose location and size are ideal for us. He has tentatively said yes to an offer, but the deal isn’t done until it’s done. If we can secure that house, we should be set on buildings at Holy Redeemer until either of the new buildings are built a decade or more from now. Since it is real estate, this expense should retain its value. Please hold this up in prayer, and if you happen to have $600,000 you would like to donate, I’d love to hear from you! If we are able to secure this house, we will be able to do two things that we can’t do right now.
An expectation of Partners in the Gospel is for the priests assigned to a parish family to be able to live together. To do that, according to Archdiocesan guidelines, the parish most own a rectory (house) that has a bedroom, full bathroom, and sitting room for each priest (a suite), in addition to a common kitchen, dining area, guest room with a bathroom, and all the other space and stuff that modern homes have. The two rectories that we currently have, one at Holy Redeemer the other at St. Thomas, don’t fulfill the requirements that are needed for two priests to live together. If we can secure the house we are in negotiations to purchase, we will be able to house both priests together and have a room for guests such as visiting priests or seminarians.
A word about priests living together: it is very important. God told Adam in Eden that it wasn’t right that man live alone, He wasn’t just referring to marriage. The rate of depression for people that live alone is much higher than it is for people who live with others. The single greatest factor that contributes to poor priest morale and even vocational crises is isolation. I’m committed to finding a way for the pastor and vicar of this parish family to live in the same rectory.
The second thing we can do if we can purchase this neighboring house is to consolidate the staff to one site. A demographic reality is the need to have our staff at Holy Redeemer where the large majority of our parishioners attend Mass and show up for events and programs. We don’t currently have enough office space at Holy Redeemer to consolidate all of the staff there. Consequently, the evangelization staff is at St. Thomas’s office building while the rest of the staff is at Holy Redeemer. With the purchase of the additional house, we’ll be able to move all the staff to the Holy Redeemer campus. This will contribute greatly to our staff’s ability to communicate, collaborate and coordinate with one another, reduce inefficiencies, and raise our accountability and performance.
The next property item I want to discuss is the north parking lot. We hope to break ground on this in 2027. When the north parking lot is completed, we will have created a second drop-off and pick-up area to complement the one that already exists at the end of the long walkway from the big west parking lot to the front doors of the church. The redesigned parking lot will significantly shorten the distance the disabled will have to travel from the parking lot to the church. It will also create some non-compact parking spaces and an easier flow of traffic.
Another potential property improvement, and it would be a game changer, is whether we can fill in our two bioswales on the north side of our property. One of them is immediately adjacent to the parish center, and the other is just across the lane between the parish center and the edge of our property. To do that, we are seeking approval from the county to install a huge bowl under the north parking lot, so that we can divert the rainwater from the bioswales into it, and from it, into the county storm drains. If that is approved, and we have good reason to hope it will be, then we can install the bowl under the north parking lot when we renovate that lot in 2027. If that happens, then we can fill-in those two bioswales and move the lane between the parish center and the north property line closer to the property line, and expand the parish center northward—doubling the square footage!
Finally, the roof on Holy Redeemer’s church. We’ve known for some time that the roof needs some work. We found out a little over a month ago that it needs a $200,000 replacement now! That will happen this month as we can’t wait any longer because water could seep into it as early as this winter. The new roof is guaranteed to last ten years but should last forty.
So, what does all of this cost? Here’s a rough breakdown:
1. New roof on church - $200,000
2. Redesigned north parking lot - $400,000
3. Neighborhood house - $600,000
4. Expanded parish center - $1,000,000 (no estimate on this yet)
5. TOTAL cost for all of these projects = $2,200,000
What do we have in savings at Holy Redeemer?
1. $342,254 in operational surplus
2. $755,786 savings designated for future building project
3. $231,525 reserve funds
4. TOTAL in savings that could be used now for these projects = $1,329,565
5. There are other funds in savings, but they are either restricted or are ACA designated funds.
As you can see, the numbers don’t add up, however, we do have what it takes in savings right now for all but the expanded parish center. We’ll probably look at a capital campaign in the coming year to replenish our savings account and raise the funds for the parish center expansion.
To help visualize what these projects look like currently, we are providing a preliminary sketch above of the Holy Redeemer property. The yellow buildings we already own. The brown buildings we wish to own or add onto. The pink area in the parking lot is the area we hope to add to the existing footprint.
Thank you for staying informed with us about these needs and future planning for the benefit of our Parish Family.
May Almighty God Bless You,
Fr. Thomas Nathe
Fr. Nathe
