Cuba has allowed construction of the country's first new Catholic church in 55 years that's being funded by Tampa parishioners, the church said Monday.

Experts said it's a sign of improving relations between the Vatican and Cuba's communist government.

The church will be built in Sandino, a citrus and coffee-growing town in the far-western province of Pinar del Rio.

Father Ramon Hernandez at St. Lawrence Catholic Church in Tampa said they've been collecting donations from their parishioners for the past few years to fund the Cuban church.

So far, they've collected half the amount of the total cost of the church which is expected to be $90,000 and open in the next couple of years.

"In Cuba, time is different than here," Father Hernandez said. "I hope in one to two years we’ll be finished.”

The church publication "Christian Life" said it will have space for 200 people.

"The construction of a church is a clear demonstration of a new phase, of an improvement, in relations between the church and the state," said Enrique Lopez Oliva, a professor of the history of religions at the University of Havana.

Father Hernandez, 69, who was born in Cuba and left the country in 1980, said St. Lawrence Catholic Church was built by Cubans.

"Tampa are so connected with Cuba from the 19th century," he said. "This church was built with the help of a lot of Cubans who came in the '60s."

The Catholic Church had tense relations with what was long an officially atheist government for many years after the 1959 revolution, but they began to improve ahead of Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998.

The government revived observance of a Christmas holiday and began allowing masses or homilies to be broadcast on official media. It also dropped a ban on church membership for Communist Party members that had been adopted in the years after the 1959 revolution.

Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.