Land on the SE corner of Normal and Davis Streets was purchased in August of 1987. As of February 1988, nearly $100,000 had been pledged to the project.
The Bishop then pledged a matching $100,000 from the parishes of the Diocese of Jefferson City. Total budget for the project was $350,000.
The yellow house on the corner was torn down under the direction of Mary Immaculate parishioner Phil Hebert. Construction was to begin in the summer of 1988, but then the project began to hit some major snags.
Because of cost overruns, the architect was asked to redesign the building. Then NMSU came to Fr. Les and offered to buy the corner lot in order to extend the greenway reaching from the dorms along Normal Street to the president’s home, which fronts Halliburton. So, in August of 1988, Newman sold the corner lot and bought two more lots south of the corner. The new building would now have to be designed to front Davis Street. In addition, the white house slated to be used for Cornerstone, the Catholic student house, now stood on the proposed building site and had to be moved to a new foundation two lots to the south, after the two houses standing there had also been demolished.
Groundbreaking for the new Center finally took place on NMSU’s Graduation Day in May 1989. After all his work of negotiation and fundraising, Fr. Les left the Newman Center before the actual construction began. In his wake came Fr. Kevin Clohessy, who presided over the excavation and the raising of the walls in late summer of 1989. Fr. Kevin held several well-attended Masses on the site and in the unfinished building. He and several helpers moved in to the facility in January 1990. The first regular Sunday liturgies were celebrated there on January 13 and 14. The Newman Center was officially dedicated in services on April 7, with a Mass by Bishop Michael McCauliffe of Jefferson City, and a Thanksgiving Mass celebrated by Fr. Kevin Clohessy on April 8, 1990.