By Jan Schultz
for the Register
Activity has picked up at the corner of 7th and Broadway in Imperial, where construction is underway for a new rectory for St. Patrick Church.
The current rectory, which is nearly 70 years old, stands just west of the church at 128 E. 7th St. The new rectory, which will also house the parish office, is being built south of the parish hall, in a lot that had been used for parking.
Father Lothar Gilde, who has been pastor at St. Patrick for nine years, is excited about all the features the new rectory will contain: three bedrooms and three baths, an attached garage, a large gathering/meeting area, and no stairs inside or out.
The larger gathering space will also allow more room for hosting priests from the Grant Deanery, in which Imperial is centrally located, Father Gilde noted.
An easily accessible office with a separate entrance is one of its most welcome features, he added. The south-facing new rectory will have 2,650 square feet and another 550 square feet for its double garage. There is no basement.
Tom Terryberry, a St. Patrick Parish council member, said discussion about a new rectory “got more serious” in the past year, due largely to consideration of how to deal with some of the age-related issues with the current rectory.
Projects such as remodeling the kitchen, basement issues, dealing with unsafe steps at the back door and adding an attached garage to the current rectory have been addressed over the past decade or more, he said, but, in the end, patching up those issues didn’t seem to be the way to proceed.
Father Gilde said the parish council and church groups were discussing a possible attached garage when he arrived as pastor nine years ago.
“There are lots of issues and each one is difficult, so we looked in a different direction,” Terryberry said. “There was a lot to patch up.”
Approval from Lincoln Diocese administration and then a signature on the plans from Bishop James Conley came in the winter, Terryberry said.
Dirt work began in mid-June and foundation forms were placed in August.
Terryberry said there are no definite plans for the current rectory structure which is being replaced, but the general consensus is to have that space west of the church where the rectory is now opened up, preferably by moving the house off the property.
