Behind the Scenes - Sept 1st Immaculata Update Video
The Immaculata Church Project - the largest SSPX-built church in the world. The Immaculata is the future home of the Catholic faithful of the Society of St. Pius X in St. Mary's, KS. After over 40 years since the original Immaculata burned down, this magnificent Romanesque church will stand as a symbol of the Faith, for Our Lady, and for the greater glory of God.
To support this project, visit www.anewimmaculata.org/donate
"It was the spring of 1978 and we got the call…" recalls volunteer firefighter Rob Eichman who attended the original Immaculata in St. Mary's when the Jesuits were there. 42 years later, he's working to build the new Immaculata. See more progress and videos at / @theimmaculata8707
Watch the full 24' video on the project here - www.anewimmaculata.org/
-- transcript --
It was always Midnight Mass that we went to the Immaculata. The Jesuits were here then. And what I remember about it was the choir the Jesuits had there for Midnight Mass was great.
So I was here on the volunteer fire department when the original church burned. It was in the Spring of 1978, and we just got the call and there were as many fire trucks as they could get here. 42 years later seeing the new church come up out of the ground and that's a pretty good feeling after you watch the other one burn.
My name is Robert Eichman with Midwest Concrete Materials. We're doing all the site grading and base rock for the paving. Well first step, we came in stripped all the topsoil, stockpiled it for reuse on the site; we had three scrapers running tractor scrapers, a dozer, a couple excavators, compaction equipment, water truck, and then the last thing we did was came in and dug the basement for the church. Then we had to do an over-dig of five feet underneath the building and then put different dirt back under the building and then we put a layer of crushed concrete for a working surface for the concrete contractor. It was close to 50,000 yards of dirt that we moved on the site, or we will move by the time we're done with the site. It's a beautiful site and my guys working out here just loved it because they came out here in the morning, watched sun come up and it was great material to work with.
The front corners of the basement will be where the two towers rise and the height of the towers will be approximately 123 feet from the bottom of the hole that you see, then the next notch out would be the Baptistry, and then you move down about the center right at the east end of the basement will be the altar. The basement will daylight out where you can walk out of the basement; what you see in the bottom of the floor there would be eight inches below what your finished floor is going to be. There'll be four or more inches of rock going on there and four inches of concrete; the deep part of the cut had to be sloped back to meet OSHA standards so it’ll be safe for people working and not have a cave in. It all came out real nice, like I said, it's really good soil so it was easy to work with and get in shape. So the month of September you'll see rebar and other materials showing up on the site, the construction office trailer will be here; you'll have workers down in the basement tying rebar mats for the footings and construction fencing, safety fence will go up around the site and you'll see probably a lot of activity, a lot of truck traffic bringing materials into the site. Then you'll go into October, that’s when all the concrete will start going into the footings and walls for the basement.
I mean that was a beautiful church that burned down and this is going to be a great church to see come up out of the ground.
-- end transcript --
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