The difficulties encountered during the design process were equally matched by those encountered during the construction phase of the project....
St. Paul Parish began fundraising and planning for a new Catholic church for the community of Mosinee, Wis., in 1998. It would take 13 years, however, before the project would be realized. There was a transition in priests, architects, and even Bishops before it was completed. At the heart of the problem was a parish strongly divided between keeping the memoriesand history of an existing 1922 church or letting go and building a new church. Several church designs were completed, reviewed, priced, and voted on. Eventually, a design completed in 2009 by Blue Design Group of Hortonville, Wis., broke the impasse and united the congregation with a "contemporical" (contemporary and historical) solution. The proposed church design interwove historical design themes and traditional brick detailing with contemporary materials and layouts on the interior.
The difficulties encountered during the design process were equally matched by those encountered during the construction phase of the project. During the first week of construction, the excavator would be delayed after encountering buried foundations from previous homes and rock at the lowest level of the proposed building. Modifications would be required for underground plumbing before work could progress. Two weeks later, a worker operating a compactor was crushed when it rolled over on him. Fortunately, he was able to make a recovery thanks to the quick actions of the project superintendent on-site. As winter set in, the masonry contractor was forced to utilize temporary heated enclosures to complete work on the bell tower. Bitterly cold temperatures also forced concrete crews to use heat blankets to remove frost from the ground in order to complete concrete floor pours.
When Valentine's Day arrived on Monday, Feb. 14, 2011, construction workers were not greeted with cards or chocolates. Instead, they discovered that the night before the entire roof structure had collapsed due a 70+ mph straight-line wind. It would be over a month before full construction would resume again. As construction neared completion, there would be more delays. While removing existing asphalt scheduled for demolition, the excavator hit a main gas line serving the community.
Further excavation revealed unsuitable soil that had to be removed and replaced with engineered fill. A short time later, workers would again be surprised when they returned to the jobsite on Monday, April 18, 2011; they were denied access to the site due to an armed standoff on a neighboring property. This was anything but typical for a town that has 3,820 people and rarely sees any crime. Once construction was completed, demolition of the existing church would continue the rash of delays. While removing the bell tower, the demolition contractor struck an electrical line, which took out power to a third of the city.
Fr. Don Przybylski read a passage from the Gospel of Luke at the groundbreaking ceremony, which spoke of the importance of faith.
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