For years, a big night at Chabad of St. Petersburg started with a packing list. Prayer books went into boxes. Torah scrolls were carefully loaded for the drive across town. Supplies for a challah bake, a Purim party or a High Holiday service followed them to whichever hotel or hall had been booked, where the Chabad-Lubavitch center would be set up for a few hours and taken apart again before the night was over.

That routine is over. Since April, the new Chabad Center for Jewish Life at 533 4th Street North in downtown St. Petersburg, Fla., has hosted services, classes and celebrations under one roof. On Sunday, Oct. 25, at 4 p.m., the community will gather to cut the ribbon and formally dedicate the building.

“For years, our Park Street location was a wonderful home and witnessed tremendous growth,” says Rabbi Alter Korf, who founded Chabad of St. Petersburg with his wife, Chaya Korf, in 2002 and serves as its director. “But as the community grew, our larger events meant packing up and taking Jewish life on the road.”

The Park Street building was the base for weekly services, Hebrew School, Shabbat dinners and classes for more than two decades. Its limits showed at the community’s largest gatherings, including High Holiday services and lectures by Holocaust survivors, which regularly had to be held elsewhere.

The new center was built with those gatherings in mind. It includes a sanctuary, a social hall, classrooms, rooms for adult education and meetings, a commercial kitchen, and spaces set aside for children and families.

“Now, for the first time, we have a home large enough to bring all of Jewish life together under one roof,” says Korf. “We’re already experiencing what that means.”

The grand opening will feature local dignitaries, a buffet dinner and a children’s program, and is meant to honor the community members and supporters who made the building possible.

For Korf, the center was never really about square footage.

“It’s about creating a place where every Jew can walk through the doors and know there is a place for them,” he says, “a place to pray, learn, celebrate, connect and belong.”

“After more than two decades of growth,” he adds, “we can truly say, ‘Home at Last.’”