(Wendi Poole / Special to the E-N) Dan Wigodsky of Wigodsky and Associates Architects (right) and David Morales, youth pastor at Jubilee Outreach, stand on the foundation of the new church building on W.W. White Road. Wigodsky is using pre-fab buildings with steel frames for the church to create good design with a budget.

Jubilee Outreach church design attracts attention.

Going by the artist's rendering for the Jubilee Outreach church's new complex, the viewer might think it was modeled after a drive-in movie lot — that is if one can imagine the roof covering the classrooms as the parking lot and the "steeple" as the giant outdoor screen.

The steeple is actually a narrow rectangular lobby with a 57-foot-high sharply slanted skylight roof.

"It wasn't something we were planning to do," admits Youth Pastor David Morales. But while reviewing the original drawings, the music director suggested the lobby be slanted, "to give it some shape."

Dan Wigodsky, the architect, redrew the lobby and the "steeple" nickname stuck. The formal name for the lobby is Building of Light, so named because its high interior walls will be covered in crushed white quartz that will sparkle with multicolored light when the sun's rays come through the skylight.

"I'm hoping this sets a new design standard for the South Side," Wigodsky said. "I think this will be a neighborhood landmark."

Wigodsky had been looking for an opportunity to sell metal low-budget buildings as architecturally chic, and his chance came when the father-son pastor team of Joe and David Morales came looking for solutions to their congregation's growing pains.

"We have to keep multiple services for us to function," David Morales said. "We have three services that run Saturdays and two on Sunday mornings."

It's been almost five years since the church members began talking about a new building and about two years since they first approached Wigodsky.

Members' reaction to the designs, Morales said, was very favorable. The congregation was expecting a typical modern metal church building, something almost barnlike, he said.

Construction began in March and the summerlong erection of the steel framing has attracted attention from church members and nonmembers.

"A lot of people come by just to see what's going on," Morales said. "On this side of town, you won't see anything of this size or with this type of architecture."

Wigodsky is excited not just with acceptance of his design, but with the materials and overall cost.

"There are inexpensive materials used in interesting ways," he said.

Another distinctive feature will be the use of Tectum, low-cost Fiberglas panels that are typically used in office building ceilings for acoustics.

Wigodsky is taking advantage of their stonelike appearance to assemble them in varying depths along the sanctuary's wall to re-create the look of Jerusalem's Wailing Wall.

In all, there will be four structures: a lobby, classroom building, 1,000-seat sanctuary and a utility building.

The metal shell and other budget materials will keep construction costs for the 30,400-square-foot complex at about $75 per square foot.

The building costs will total about $1.9 million. Site work and other costs bring the grand total to about $2.4 million, Morales said.

"The buildings alone are $61.50 per square foot," Wigodsky said. "Who wouldn't want to do this? I think of the church as a prototype for any kind of large building."

The existing church, originally known as the Taylor Tabernacle, will remain, Morales said.

"It has a lot of history," he said. Jubilee Outreach started 25 years ago from a splinter group of the original church. "We started in this church, moved to a different location, then (15 years ago) moved back."

The members are expecting to move into the new building by January, in time for the church's 25th anniversary.

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