Images: Stylish church project changing downtown Decatur block

Eight months after construction kicked off, a Catholic church expansion project is making a visible mark along one of downtown Decatur’s busiest traffic corridors.

The modern-style project in the 600 block of W. Ponce de Leon Avenue will be a school expansion and other uses for St. Thomas More Catholic Church and School. It’s part of a larger, master-planned growth spurt for a parish founded in 1941 and situated on the western fringes of downtown Decatur. 

Scheduled to open this fall, the topped-out, two-story school expansion was designed by Atlanta-based Houser Walker Architecture, whose portfolio includes several church renovations and expansions around Georgia. 

Estimated to cost $15 million, the expansion’s first phase includes a 12-classroom building overlooking W. Ponce de Leon Avenue for kindergarten through fifth grades, along with meeting room spaces. (The school currently operates in the basement of an administration building and a third-floor space above the church’s sanctuary.)

That floor above the sanctuary will be converted into multiple meeting rooms of various sizes filled with natural light, per church leadership. 

According to a master plan completed in 2023, future development phases could see an eye-catching new worship building with soaring interiors erected on the flipside of the church from the new school. 

The expansion project broke ground in August. The development teams also includes Parrish Construction Group, Flippo Civil Design, and Shear Structural engineers. 

In the gallery above, find more context and photos for this St. Thomas More expansion phase and potential future ones.

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