The Sikh community in Fresno, California are reportedly nearing completion of the first phase of the Sikh Institute of Fresno, a Gurdwara and Sikh community facility that will replace a smaller Gurdwara in that city:

The nearly $10 million Sikh Institute of Fresno, a 48,000-square-foot building on 11 acres on North Parkway Drive, is scheduled to open in January.

Rendering of completed Fresno Sikh Institute (source: fresnosikhs.org)

…The new building features six classrooms, an indoor community eating area, a main hall for about 800 worshippers on the second floor and a library with a computer lab on the third floor. A planned second building will house a free medical clinic for the needy.

“We have so many Sikhs who are doctors here — and they want to donate their services,” [executive committee secretary Gurpreet S.] Mann says. “Not to just Sikhs, but to everyone.”

The institute is designed to serve the Sikh community’s educational, medical, cultural, social and spiritual needs as well as others.

As a comprehensive center with admirable goals, let us wish this community well in this project.