As an assessor for Hope Partnership’s New Beginnings service and Transitional Pastor of Disciples Christian Church in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Roger McKinney just happened to be at the right place at the right time. When he joined the church in April of 2015, he noticed that the church structure had many issues and with the agreement and support of the congregation it was time to make a few changes, which included downsizing the space.
The current church was built in 1956 and is approximately 27,000 square feet, located on more than three acres of open land in an urban area. And according to McKinney, the building has more space than the congregation needed. The facility has approximately 17 doors and is laden with asbestos. And although the congregation is vibrant and a thriving force in the community, it has declined from the early days when the church was first built. As a result, the congregation felt that any hope of simply remodeling the building was lost.
With a wealth of knowledge in this area, McKinney was able to help this congregation navigate through the process.
“I knew that sustainability and what to do with this big building were issues that we needed to address,” says McKinney.
He contacted Tom Chema, retired president of Hiram College and a development consultant in Cuyahoga County, which includes the Cleveland Heights area.
“Tom has a passion for urban redevelopment and stopping urban sprawl (the uncontrolled development in concentrated urban areas).
Based on Chema’s referral, Disciples Christian Church was introduced to a developer who offered approximately US $700,000 for two acres of the church’s property. The developer has plans to build about 12 to 15 townhouses and a 44-unit apartment building on the property. The congregation would use the cash to build a new building on the remaining section of land.
Disciples Christian Church hired an architect in January 2017 to design a new building on their property that would meet their needs.
“However, this plan was too expensive to build,“ says McKinney. “The money offered by the developer combined with money raised by the congregation, was not enough to build a new project” he says.
As result, the architect came up with an alternative plan. Portions of the current building will be demolished and the rest of the building will be renovated to serve the needs of the congregation.
“This is the path that we are on now,” says McKinney. “During this process, we discovered that we will need an additional $300,000 to complete the project.”
The congregation was referred to Maribeth Westerfield, former advisor and now consultant for Disciples Church Extension Fund to assist with a capital campaign for the church.
The re-sized and remodeled building will be approximately 12,000 square feet of space. The current large sanctuary will be converted and split between a sanctuary and fellowship hall. The other space will be classrooms, a new kitchen and some additional interior and exterior changes to make the building look new. The congregation will devote approximately 750 to 800 square feet of space to continue to house The Heights Emergency Food Center, which serves three communities in the Cleveland area: Cleveland Heights, South Euclid and Lyndhurst.
“We will also add sustainability to the building to make it much more energy efficient,” says McKinney.
Construction of the building will begin in the Spring of 2018.
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