J Magazine Winter 2019
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The news was a shocker.<br />
First Baptist Church, said<br />
Pastor Heath Lambert,<br />
“was in cardiac arrest.”<br />
So in September<br />
the largest landowner<br />
Downtown put most of<br />
its real estate on the market.<br />
Once one of the largest Southern Baptist<br />
churches in the state, First Baptist’s membership<br />
dropped by 20,000 in the last decade,<br />
with church attendance declining from<br />
10,000 to 3,200. The budget shrank while<br />
routine maintenance of $5 million took<br />
about one-third of its budget, and deferred<br />
maintenance more than half.<br />
The former mega church was “bleeding<br />
from its pores,” Lambert said.<br />
To solve the debt crisis, the congregation<br />
took the bold move of deciding to consolidate<br />
its operations into the original church<br />
building at 124 W. Ashley St., and offer the<br />
remaining 10 blocks for sale.<br />
First Baptist’s financial crisis is unusual<br />
only in its scope and scale. All of Downtown’s<br />
churches are experiencing declining<br />
membership and a drop in revenue.<br />
There are several factors. People are<br />
attending suburban churches rather than<br />
driving Downtown. And fewer people attend<br />
church, especially millennials, and when<br />
they do attend, they give less money than<br />
previous generations.<br />
Churches are having to ask themselves<br />
tough questions about who they are, what<br />
they do and where they do it.<br />
Two San Marco churches, Southside<br />
Assembly of God and South Jacksonville<br />
Presbyterian, recently have made major<br />
decisions about their property.<br />
Southside Assembly sold its property<br />
on Kings Avenue last year for $6 million to<br />
Chance Partners, which is building a 486-<br />
unit apartment complex called San Marco<br />
Crossing. The congregation bought property<br />
at Southpoint for a new building that will be<br />
known as Lineage Church.<br />
South Jacksonville Presbyterian is<br />
selling 2.1 acres of its 2.87 acres on Hendricks<br />
Avenue to Harbert Realty Services of<br />
Birmingham, Ala., which plans to build 143<br />
apartments called Park Place at San Marco.<br />
The church will retain the sanctuary and<br />
office space.<br />
In Downtown, the Providence Center,<br />
adjacent to the Basilica of the Immaculate<br />
Conception, is expected to go on the market<br />
next year. The former parish school was renovated<br />
in the 1980s into offices for Catholic<br />
Charities and other ministries of the Diocese<br />
of St. Augustine. Catholic Charities moved<br />
to the du Pont Center this summer and St.<br />
Francis Soup Kitchen is moving to a new<br />
location at the end of the year.<br />
And last year, Simpson Memorial United<br />
Methodist Church moved out of its deteriorating<br />
Springfield property, and now shares<br />
space with First United Methodist Church.<br />
It’s part of a trend seen across the country.<br />
Churches are repurposing their property,<br />
either through sales or long-term leases.<br />
Some do it out of economic necessity; others<br />
as an investment.<br />
In New York, Marble Collegiate Church,<br />
a historic church where Norman Vincent<br />
Peale was once pastor, is collaborating with<br />
HFZ Capital Group. The church, which is a<br />
partner in the venture, sold part of its property<br />
and air rights to HFZ, which plans to build<br />
600,000 square feet of office space.<br />
“There’s a trend throughout the country<br />
of urbanization,” Casey Kemper, executive<br />
South Jacksonville Presbyterian is selling 2.1 acres<br />
of its 2.87 acres on Hendricks Avenue. Developers<br />
plan to turn the space into apartments.<br />
TOP: TIMES-UNION ARCHIVE; JEFF DAVIS