The St. Agnes Center will feature one large meeting room to seat about 600. It will be used for events like the 40th annual St. Agnes Parish Celebration being held next weekend, which now have to be held off site.
The center will also feature two smaller meeting rooms to be used by clubs and students at the St. Agnes Cathedral School.
I think it will be a great place to gather, Kelly said. He hopes people will go to the center after Mass for coffee and cake.
The center is part of a revitalization plan for the parish. Developed in 1999, the plan also called for a new pipe organ already installed in the cathedral and renovations of the St. Agnes Convent.
Funds for the revitalization were raised in 1999 during the Faith in Action Building Our Future reclamation project. Parishioners are in the third year of their five-year pledges for the projects, which were expected to cost about $5.5 million together. Kelly said significant overruns have put the projects over budget, but did not say by how much.
There has been about a one-percent falloff in pledge payments, which Kelly attributes to the poor economic climate rather than backlash from the priest sexual abuse scandal or criticism of Bishop William Murphy taking over the third floor of the convent and spending $120,000 for furnishing and appliances. Money for the Bishop
