The River Forest Development Review Board early next month will assess whether St. Vincent Ferrer Parish can get a permit to construct a building to provide more space for its active congregation and school.
During the hearing, scheduled for 7:30 p.m., Dec. 3, at River Forest Village Hall, 400 Park Ave., officials from the church will present their plans for the 5,100-square-foot, multi-purpose hall and supporting spaces.
The public also will be able to comment on the project, which will be named in memory of its late associate pastor, the Rev. Michael Kyte.
The parish’s application has been filed, and a link to the application can be found on the home page of village’s website (www.vrf.us).
Any change to the parish campus requires an alteration to the existing planned development, thus requiring the hearing before the Development Review Board.
Announced to the parish in March, the proposed church addition is 48 feet wide and 107 feet long and approximately 20 feet high.
It will be located on the west side of the building south of the existing parking lot, and extending, church officials said, almost as far as the sidewalk on Lathrop and almost to the south edge of the parking lot on the west side of the church.
No parking spaces will be lost, Nevil Hedlund, the project’s architect, told the Development Review Board during a pre-filing meeting in August.
The one-room building will serve as a hub for a variety of parish-related activities as the parish has no social hall. During the week it will serve as a lunch room for the school. At other times, it will be space for Bible study programs, religious education classes, parish breakfasts and Mimosa Sundays, among other events, according to the church’s website. A kitchen for catered events is included in the plan. Without tables the hall will hold 450 people; with tables it can hold 360.
Hedlund said hall would have operable partitions to break up the hall into smaller meeting areas. Parishioners, students and staff would be able to enter the building from the church and the school without going outside, since access to the social hall would be on the same level as the church, and the hall would be connected by a ramp to the school. The project would not have impact on the architecture and the campus as a whole, he added.
“It’s a simple project. We think it has a lot of merit to satisfy an existing need,” Hedlund told Development Review Board members in August.
In January, the parish started actively campaigning to raise funds for the building. The initial target was $1.125 million; as of October the parish had raised $2.5 million, according to the parish website.
The ultimate decision rests with the village’s board of trustees.