Liberty Lake Community Church is planning a $3 million project to erect a 24,000-square-foot church facility on land it owns in Liberty Lake and also expects to sell its current property.

The new church building is to include a 6,000-square-foot multipurpose area, which will be used as the church's sanctuary and also will have a stage so it can be used for community events, says Don Walker, who is overseeing the project for the church. As a sanctuary, the room will have seating for between 400 and 500 people. The building also will include administrative offices, classrooms, an open gathering area, and a caf that could be used during events, he says.

Walker says the four-acre site is adjacent to a 10,000-square-foot child-care center the church owns at 23218 E. Mission, in Liberty Lake.

The church operates there the Stepping Stone Christian Daycare and School, which is licensed for up to 160 children. He says the church bought the property for the new building about three years ago, and adds that the acreage will give the church space to grow. The church currently is located about two miles away, in a much smaller building at 704 S. Garry Drive, which Walker says the congregation of 250 families has outgrown. The current building can seat only 150 people in its sanctuary and is located on less than an acre of land, so there is no room to expand at its current site, he says.

The church has applied for a building permit from the city of Liberty Lake for the new building, and hopes to break ground later this summer on the project. The multipurpose room will be constructed with concrete masonry walls and metal decking with a steel-joist roof, while the perimeter foyer, classrooms, and administrative spaces will be wood-frame and wood roof-truss construction, says Gary Johnson, project architect for Architects West Inc., of Coeur d'Alene, which is designing the facility.

The project will be constructed by Blew's Construction Inc., of Spokane Valley, and is expected to take about 11 months to complete, Walker says.

Later, the church plans two additional projects that together would add about 13,000 square feet of space to the facility, Walker says. In one of those planned projects, it would construct an addition between the planned building and day-care buildings that would adjoin the two structures and provide shared space for both. In a third and final phase, it would construct an additional sanctuary space that would seat between 400 and 600 people. The timing of those phases will depend on the availability of funding, Walker says.

Once construction begins on the new building, the current church and a nearby parsonage will be put up for sale.