The Seventh-Day Adventist Church of Kalispell is relocating after two years of planning and 45 years of service on U.S. 93 North.

The new church will be built on the corner of West Reserve Drive and Spring Creek Road, planned for 7,400 square feet. Excavation on the 20-acre property began last week with construction of a driveway. Hammerquist Casalegno is the general contractor.

“We’ve just outgrown the church and there’s no room to expand,” said Donald McElvain, communications director for the church. “It’s been in our thoughts for a while.”

The church membership is about 175 people, which is roughly a 15 percent increase from a few years ago, according to the Rev. Casey Higgins of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.

“We really needed an educational wing for our church,” Higgins said. “That was our primary motivation; we needed adequate space for our classrooms and fellowship hall.”

The property has plenty of room for future expansion, Higgins said. The new church will feature an educational wing and space that will double as a sanctuary and fellowship hall. Higgins and the church’s building committee plans to add a separate sanctuary at some point, but will formulate that addition later on.

“We’re excited about what it represents — future growth and more potential for serving out community and our families,” Higgins said.

The current church was built in 1969, Higgins said, while the Adventist Church has been in Kalispell for 105 years.

Kalispell Regional Medical Center purchased the church property two years ago, McElvain said, and has allowed the church to remain in its current facility until a site could be found.

“It was a sweetheart deal for us,” McElvain said about Kalispell Regional’s purchase of the property.

Steve Kreitner, chairman of the building committee, said the committee rented a bus and brought the congregation to several proposed locations, including the former Vann’s appliance store on U.S. 2 in Evergreen. Each step of the move has been voted on by church members. The West Reserve location was solidified two years ago. Since then the church leadership has been in the process of permitting, contracting and engineering.

“There’s lots of green space and that’s where the growth of the county seems to be going,” Kreitner said. “It seemed like the optimal place for our mission of spreading the word of Jesus Christ and loving our community.”

The church also operates in three different areas of Kalispell, including a church school on Helena Flats Road and a community service center on Ninth Avenue East North.

“We’ve been keeping busy with our properties in three different areas of town, but this new property offers us the chance to do more,” Higgins said.

For more information on the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, visit www.kalispelladventist.org.

Reporter Seaborn Larson can be reached at 758-4441 or by email at slarson@dailyinterlake.com.