Altoona's Italian community lived for the most part within a seven-block radius of this church. They commissioned Altoona-born architect David Puderbaugh to design this, his first Altoona commission, only three years after his graduation from the Drexel School of Architecture in Philadelphia. After the basement was dug and the foundation and cornerstone were laid, the bishop halted construction due to the congregation's heavy debt. Construction resumed in 1922. The rough-faced brownstone church in a Florentine Renaissance style uses smooth-faced brownstone on the clerestory and upper apse and as trim on the facade. A tripartite central entrance leads to the sanctuary with a tall, rounded apse at the west. The interior's basilica plan was ornately decorated in 1953, after the church's mortgage was retired, and was restored in 2006.