The Church History
• In 1943, an organizational meeting led to a Sunday School and morning and evening church services on April 12, 1943. The congregation adopted the name "The Wayside Chapel". During the early months of 1949 plans were laid for the reorganization as a Baptist church and a move to the Richfield American Legion Hall for meetings. On June 12, 1949, a service was held at Bethlehem Baptist Church of Minneapolis to officially organize the Richfield church as Wooddale Baptist Church of Richfield. Later in the same month the church broke ground for a permanent church building in the form of a basement structure which was occupied November 13, 1949.
A $100,000 education unit and gymnasium/auditorium was completed for dedication on September 13, 1959. Once again, in 1962, the church began having duplicate Sunday morning services and began planning for further expansion of the facilities. On September 27, 1964, the first service was held in a new church auditorium.
In 1981, the church purchased 32 acres of undeveloped land in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. Plans were drawn and finances were arranged in anticipation of the nine-mile (14 km) move. Partially in response to the results of a marketing study, the church was renamed "Wooddale Church".
Construction began in fall of 1983 and the first phase of the new campus (a multi-purpose worship room, administrative offices and classrooms) was occupied in July of 1984. Plans and construction were begun shortly thereafter on the second phase (gymnasium and athletic complex, more classrooms, and more offices and workroom area). The second phase was occupied in November of 1985.
Ground was broken for the 63,000 square-foot (5,853 square-meter) Worship Center on October 30, 1988. The building was designed by architect Bentz Thompson Rietow. Construction continued throughout the winter of 1989 and occupancy of the 2000-seat worship center, complete with pipe organ and a 200-foot (61-meter) steeple, was in November of 1990.
During the summer of 1991, the lower level of the Worship Center, consisting primarily of classrooms and music offices and rehearsal room was completed. In the spring of 1995, construction again began on the Wooddale Church campus to add further classroom space and expand the offices. Work was completed in the fall of 1995.
On May 17, 1999, groundbreaking took place to provide a 34,600 square-foot (3,214 square-meter) addition that will be dedicated on March 11 and 12, 2000. This new construction included a large, modern nursery, an expanded bookstore, a new prayer room, a new Chapel, more classroom space for adult and children's classes, and an expanded kitchen and Wooddale Cafe.
