Imam al Asr Masjid held a town hall meeting on June 13, 2025, to present two possible paths for the future of our community’s expansion.
Regardless of the path we take, the goal of creating a home for our community remains unchanged.
“Whether it’s with our current locations or a larger one, our goal is to realize a community in the holistic image that Islam represents,” said resident scholar Sayyid Sulayman Hassan Abidi. “It’s to create a home to fulfill our spiritual, social, professional, and other needs.”
The first option is to continue with building our new center from the ground up. IAM’s leadership has made significant strides in making this project a reality by purchasing the requisite properties, working with some of the area’s top development experts, and clearing many regulatory hurdles that often stop such projects from coming to fruition.
However, unforeseen circumstances, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and recent tariffs, have significantly increased construction costs to an estimated $18 million. Regulations require that the construction project is completed within two years, so the community would have to raise the full amount within that time.
Commercial property costs, on the other hand, have gone down. This presents us with our second option: to purchase a building that is already constructed and is zoned for some of the uses we planned to establish in the second phase of our expansion.
Our community can potentially expand the school, offer facilities for burial preparation, and provide other crucial services to the community that would not have been available if we constructed a new building from the ground up.
After thoroughly discussing these options at the town hall, community members unanimously voted to pause the construction project while IAM’s leadership explores potential commercial properties that could fit our community’s needs.
This will allow us to retain the approvals we’ve gained for construction without starting the two-year deadline to complete the project.
So far, we have raised about $5 million to put toward the expansion project. IAM and its trustees recognize these assets are a trust from the community and the Imam of our time. As such, they will always strive to keep these funds safe and use them to build a strong foundation for our community’s future.
