New Holland church shares plans for expansion

An engineer hired by a New Holland-area mega church distilled a 643-page traffic study in 45 minutes on March 13 at an East Earl Township supervisors meeting.

"We're not here for any approvals," said Bob Murphy, senior project manager for Larson Design Group, on behalf of Petra Christian Fellowship, which plans to expand its campus in four phases over the next 15 years at 565 Airport Road.

Murphy said PCF is preparing a secondary submission of preliminary plans. The original plan was proposed to the East Earl planning commission in March 2010.

PCF will submit the plan to the Earl and East Earl township planning commissions, who will make a recommendation to their respective township supervisors as to whether the conditional preliminary plans will move into final design.

"(PCF) anticipates submitting a final phase 2 plan in a few months," stated Murphy in an email. "Construction will hopefully begin by late 2012 or early 2013."

The first phase of the expansion was completed in 2011. The second phase is in its planning stage. Projected completion dates of the third and fourth phase projected completion dates are 2017 and 2027, respectively.

In the first phase, the church added 92 parking spaces to the original 448. Construction began in April 2011 and was completed in September of the same year.

In the plan's second phase, 55,739 square feet will be added to the original 61,400 square-foot facility. The church would add another 340 parking spaces, build a new classroom and subdivide 10 acres into six lots along Ranck Road to help pay for expansion costs.

The plan's third phase, Murphy said, would add an additional 36,689 square feet to the facility by constructing a gymnasium. Possible road work may be required to Airport Road as well.

In the plan's final phase, the church would add an additional 40,781 square feet to the facility by building a new chapel and narthex, doubling its seating capacity to 3,600, and expanding the church's sanctuary.

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New Holland church shares plans for expansion