77-foot cross goes up

Volunteer crews assembled the four sections of the 70-ton cross Monday and raised it Tuesday as about 30 elated onlookers cheered and prayed.

The 77-foot sculpture overlooking Interstate 10 is the first feature of a 23-acre religious sculpture garden planned by The Coming King Foundation, a local nonprofit group.

“It's going to bless the community forever and ever and ever,” said Max Greiner Jr., the group's president and designer of “The Empty Cross.”

He predicts that the finished garden will draw at least 1,000 visitors a day. The project, which can't be completed until $2 million more is raised, is a prototype for “tabernacle gardens” elsewhere.

The Christian Family Church in Owatonna, Minn., already is planning a similar garden there. The pastor, Tim Peterson, said he expects the project to take three years.

Monte Paddleford, who fabricated the steel structure at cost in his foundry in Wyoming, said, “This is the largest piece of sculpture we've ever done. This will be here for hundreds of years.”

The raising capped nine years of planning and fundraising by Greiner, 58, who has pitched the garden project on national Christian television programs, raising more than $2 million in cash and in-kind donations.

Two cranes were provided by Alamo Crane Services, whose chief operating officer, Marvin Ohlenbusch, said, “The good Lord has given me many, many things. It's time to give back.”

The site won't open to the public until an entrance road and parking lots are built off I-10.