TALLADEGA — More than a decade of planning finally paid off Sunday when ground was broken for the Talladega Regional Family Life Center, a project of Mt. Canaan Baptist Church.

“It was great, everything just worked out perfectly,” according to the Rev. Horace Patterson, pastor at Mt. Canaan. “I’d say we’ve been working on this project for at least a dozen years.”

Assuming that actual construction gets under way in December, Patterson said he believes the project could be complete no later than December 2010, and possibly as early as September. “Once construction is completed, we can move in some of the programs we have developed and identified as priorities.”

According to a press release, the building will be 33,000 square feet situated on the 10 acres next to the church that once housed Wehadkee’s Chinnabee Mill. The “building will house a fellowship and conference area seating 500; (a) commercial kitchen; a formal stage for presentations, musicals and plays; fitness center, youth activity center, senior day care and child daycare.”

The cost for phase one, including property acquisition and renovation of an existing 16,500 square foot building, is estimated at $1.4 million.

Patterson said the original plan was to build the center onto the back of the church, but then a combination of factors, including the availability of the Wehadkee property next door, led to a change of plans. “It just seemed much more desirable,” he said.

The church acquired to the property in 2005, after the old mill had been shuttered and razed.

Mt. Canaan Church member Bessie Urquhart took a leadership role in the family life center project, as she had on both the Canaan Estates projects, but she died before much of the early planning was complete.