 Once upon a time Houston's Compaq Center  Formerly a basket ball and hockey arena  Megachurch takes up the place for a 30 year lease and will pay the City approximately $12 million.  Weekly congregation service attendance more than 30,000 people  Transformation cost: $75 million  The overall $95million project became the first large scale Sports arena in the country to be renovated for a completely new use Project Details > Total project cost: $95 million > Construction cost: $75 million > Total seating capacity: 16,000 > Total man hours expended: 1.4 million > Number of contractors and consultants: 50 > Length of low voltage cable used: 57 miles > Amount of air cooled in completed building: More than 1 million cu ft per minute > Amount of carpet placed: 50,000 sq yd > New and existing lighting fixtures in facility: 7,000 > Number of doors in facility: 1,000 > Number of new toilets installed: 296 Lakewood Church, Houston, TX

Lakewood Church, Houston, TX Old New

 Greg Lynn's church building is actually an adaptive reuse of the Knickerbockers Laundry, an art deco factory that stood abandoned for years.  The symmetricality of the older building, however, has been disrupted by the new addition, and the former entrance is now covered by the a fore mentioned steel screen placed off center to the original doors.  Despite all that has been done to the original, the strong forms and curves of the deco design remain clearly visible along the street.  $90-per-square-foot budget was set for the minor rennovation. New York/Korean Presbyterian Church

Christian Church Buckhead, Atlanta, GA Adaptive reuse of Gold Club to MegaChurch  Most infamous club in America being turned into a Mega church.  “Over 200 volunteers from our church and churches around metro Atlanta came and helped renovate the Gold Club into God’s Club. In two months, the building was transformed from something meant for evil into a place devoted to good” – Dan Garrett

The Blue Ridge Community Church  The Blue Ridge Community Church is in a building that was originally a Food Lion grocery store in Lynchburg, VA.  Before the church moved in, the building was also used by the Salvation Army.  The current sanctuary seats 500 people, has a cafe and large lobby, several classrooms and a youth center.  The congregation has about 1,000 people.  The church has found that growth is greatly affected by location, as they have moved around from place to place. Their current location is central, and offers ample space for their growing needs.

Grace Fellowship Church- Renovated Grand Union Latham, NY  Grace Fellowship Church is a non denominational congregation in Latham, NY.  The church contains a 1500 seat sanctuary, over 15 classrooms, 2 cafes, a youth club, several meeting rooms and offices, and is home to several clubs and meetings.  Grace Fellowship is in a renovated Grand Union Grocery Store. The congregation has been in the grocery store for 2 years now. In this time, they have doubled the size of their congregation. The Grand Union sat empty for 4 years before Grace Fellowship breathed their life into it.  The Grand Union building that they currently occupy was abandoned in It had been empty for about 5 years when the Grace Fellowship bought the building in There was a solid year of renovation before the church moved in in May of 2002.

The Calvary Chapel (old building)- Renovated Winn Dixie, Pinellas Park, FL  The congregation at Calvary Chapel in Pinellas Park, FL, outside of St.Petersburg, had outgrown its building, which is a retired WinnDixie grocery store. When WalMart abandoned the building across the street to build a Super WalMart a quarter mile down the road, church members won a bid for the WalMart.  The Calvary Chapel is actually adding a second story to the front of the120,000 square foot building.  As with most big box renovators, the parking lot was a large reason for the purchase of the building. The church expects to be able to fill this parking lot on any given Sunday.  The back yard is surely part of the store that was not used by WalMart, and is being utilized solely because of the renovation.

MegaChurch for Sale  Without Walls International Church, 13.3 acre Tampa campus, which includes a 4,500 seat auditorium, a 94,000 sq. ft. office building, a television studio, and a small health club is now up for sale for a mere $30 million  Without Walls reported a $26.29 million debt in a 2006 audit. About $9.2 million of that was used to buy a 10,000 seat church in Lakeland in 2005.

 Dwindling attendance and a changing ministry focus at the Cathedral at Chapel Hill in suburban Atlanta has caused the church to put its campus on the market for $24.5 million.  Included in the sale are a 100-acre campus and a 7,000-seat auditorium, both in full use when the church was at its height in the mid ’90s.  The church saw a significant and steady decline in attendance after its founding pastor, Earl Paulk, was involved in a flurry of sex scandals that caused numerous lawsuits. Average weekly attendance has dipped from 10,000 to around 1,000. MegaChurch for Sale