Catholic student services at UNL have a new, modern home.

The 60,000-square-foot Newman Center and St. Thomas Aquinas Church at 16th and Q opened to parishioners with a private ceremony April 12. The Newman Center and 650-seat church will also hold open houses on April 19, April 26 and May 3. The open house events, which will follow church services at 10 and 11:30 a.m. each Sunday, will include tours and receptions.

Construction of church, which started in July 2013, is the second phase of a comprehensive expansion effort by the Newman Center. The first phase included construction of a 20,000-square-foot, 68-bed Phi Kappa Theta fraternity house, which opened for the 2013-2014 academic year. A final phase of the project will include construction of a Pi Alpha Chi house, a Catholic sorority founded at UNL in 2013.

Contributing architects to the project include 1991 UNL graduate Kevin Clark, owner of the Lincoln-based Clark Architectural Collaborative 3.

The new Newman Center and St. Thomas Aquinas Church provides increased ministry space, a social hall, classrooms, meeting rooms, offices, enhanced student technology services and a larger worship space. The facility incorporates the most efficient geothermal mechanical system currently available.

The Newman Center has served as a campus youth ministry at the University of Nebraska since 1906.

Steady growth of student participation in the past 15 years is a primary reason for the new construction. The reestablishment of Phi Kappa Theta by Father Robert Mataya, pastor, in the fall of 2005, has helped fuel the student involvement increase.

The expansion project is funded through a $25 million capital campaign that launched in 2010. Donors have committed $19.2 million toward the Newman Center campaign.

Newman Center/St. Thomas Aquinas Facts

• The 60,000 square foot facility includes a church, student center, parish social hall, rectory and office suites

• Seating capacity is 650, up from 300 in the previous church

• 500 tons of steel were used in the construction

• The center’s geothermal well field consists of 77 wells at 620 feet deep each, totaling about 19 miles of geothermal well pipes

• 38 couples are scheduled to be married in the church

• The Altar of Reservation and the Our Lady Chapel altar came from Immaculate Conception Church in Youngstown, Ohio

• The top of the church bell tower’s cross is about 122 feet high

• The church is 161 feet in length (east to west)

• The main aisle is 100 feet in length (east to west)

• The interior ceiling at the crossing tower is 70 feet high

• The 20-by-22-foot stained glass window above the main altar was crafted by Franz Mayer in Munich, Germany. It includes 72 panels with an average of 100 pieces of glass per panel. Fifteen more stained-glass windows, all to be crafted by Franz Mayer, are planned for the church.

• The antique ambo, or pulpit, on the south side of the altar is hand carved and came from a church in England.

• The church’s Opus 8 organ was commissioned in 1973 by the Wesley Foundation. It was previously used in UNL’s Cornerstone Methodist Church, which served as temporary home of the Newman Center during the construction project. The organ includes 1,278 pipes fashined from 98 percent hammered lead alloy.