Art Van Furniture founder Art Van Elslander is donating an estimated $20 million to expand the Solanus Casey Center and its campus to enhance the Catholic pilgrimage site and revitalize the lower east side Detroit neighborhood around it.

Since mid-November when the late Father Solanus Casey was beatified, putting him on a path to sainthood, the number of people visiting the center from around the region, other states and Canada has doubled.

Casey, an American-born Capuchin priest who died in 1957, was beatified at a Nov. 18 mass at Ford Field in Detroit. Known for his great faith, attention to the sick and ability as a spiritual counselor, he is the second American-born male to be beatified, according to the Catholic News Agency.

Finding parking near the Solanus Casey Center and affiliated Capuchin Soup Kitchen was already an issue, said Father David Preuss, director of the Solanus Casey Center and one 17 Capuchin friars who call the adjacent St. Bonaventure Monastery home. That's an immediate need the gift will help fill.

But beyond that, Art Van Elslander's gift will allow the center to accomplish "some of the things we could only dream about in the past," Preuss said.

The center had been working to acquire city-owned properties to create more parking for the past three years, he said. But it had made little progress.

"When Mr. Van Elslander gets a project in his head, it moves faster than anything we could imagine ... in three weeks, we were able to tack some of them down because of (him.)"