Vicar general Father Marc Alexander would like to see Hawaii’s next Catholic church as a five-story-high “membrane” structure big enough to hold 2,500 people rising from a plot of former agricultural land in Oahu’s Ewa district.

The Sprung Instant Structure, a tent-like building with a flattened-teardrop profile that has been showing up in the islands as gyms and temporary shelters for the homeless, would be the first phase in the development of the 23-acre property the diocese bought last year for $6 million on the corner of Fort Weaver Road and Old Fort Weaver Road.

Future plans for the v-shaped property that hugs the south corner of the West Lock Golf Course call for another more permanent church structure, classrooms, 500 parking stalls and an open field that could be used for athletics or overflow parking.

The entire project is part of the implementation of Bishop Larry Silva’s Road Map for Pastoral, Program and Facility Needs 2008-2013, which, among other goals, calls for the development of new parishes in Leeward Oahu.

Father Alexander and diocesan planner Tom Papandrew first presented the plan for the site to its closest parish, Ewa’s Immaculate Conception Church, about a mile away, at an April 7 meeting.

The relationship between the new site and the old parish still has to be defined, Father Alexander said.

“The current church can’t meet the future needs” for the area’s growing population, he said.

However, the vicar general added that some parishioners expressed the “desire to preserve history” and were concerned that “such a large church” would cause the parish to “lose the sense of a small community.”

“We hear that,” Father Alexander said.

A 2,500-person capacity

The proposed building is a product of Sprung Instant Structure, Inc., whose structures are used around the world for everything from mega-churches to aircraft hangers.

A Sprung structure is an aluminum frame over which a synthetic casing is stretched like a tent. Depending on the kind of membrane used, the manufacturer said the building can last 25-30 years.

Saint Francis School in Manoa recently put up a 7,000-square-foot Sprung structure as a gym for basketball and volleyball.

The proposed Ewa building is 140 feet wide, 240 feet long and 49 feet high with more than 27,000 square feet of floor space.

No Catholic church in Hawaii comes close to the 2,500-person capacity of the proposed structure. The only comparable Catholic buildings would be school gyms like Saint Louis’s McCabe gym which holds 2,800.

The vicar general envisions the membrane building as the location for future Catholic educator gatherings and youth rallies. The annual educators’ meeting brings about 900 to the Blaisdell Arena every January. Catholic youth rallies are usually smaller. The last such event on Oahu took place at Leeward Community College.

Father Alexander said the new building — plus needed infrastructure such as a road, service lanes and sewer connections — would cost $8-10 million. He would like to see it up by 2010.

The vicar general said the building will be “very flexible” and could later be reconfigured into several meeting spaces and even a gym after the permanent church is built.

According to Jim Bell, a principle for Belt Collins, the firm the diocese hired to prepare for the property’s development, studies required before anything can be built are now underway. They include a traffic review and an archeological report.

Bell said that land has already passed a soil study. The land is the site of a former nursery, ranch, sugar cane field and slaughterhouse, he said.

The diocese is also seeking to change the property’s zoning, he said, to “all residential,” which allows for the construction of churches and schools. It is now two-thirds residential and one-third agricultural, he said.

The diocese also needs a conditional use permit, Bell said, and the plans will have to be discussed before a neighborhood board.

A height variance will also be required to erect the nearly 50-foot tall membrane structure which would rise 20-25 feet above the present residential limits.

The only access to the property now is from the smaller Old Fort Weaver Road.

“The church wants to be there as an active member of the community, as a nexus for gathering the community,” Father Alexander said.

“In order to reach out to the community, we need a facility,” he said. “We have no large gathering place.”

He pointed out that the area across Old Fort Weaver Road from the church property is the site of the future 12,000-home Hoopili subdivision.