A church group will be taking over the Christ Anglican Church restoration project downtown. The South Peace Historical Resource Restoration Society was working on redoing the building on 102nd Street at 98th Avenue but Pastor Terry Rodgers says his church will now work on the facility. After completing it, he plans to move his congregation in and re-name it the Worship Centre of Grande Prairie.
“We plan to restore it as the historical society had planned, but the only difference will be its use; it will be a religious assembly. We will have it as a community centre as well, because it will be used in that function”
Right now his group is made up of about 40 to 50 people, and the hope is to continue growing. In the past, they’ve been renting a space, so they jumped at the opportunity to move downtown. However, Rodgers doesn’t expect to get too big for the building.
“There’s alternatives; we can always go two services or three services; we can go on the west side of the city to the north side and look at another facility. There’s lots of options; those are good problems.”
Right now, there’s only has room for about 23 vehicles to park. Although city councillor Kevin MacLean brought up the strain the facility may put on parking downtown, the city decided to not put any restrictions on where church go-ers could park their vehicles when approving their development permit.
Rodgers says the goal for the 102nd Street building is to redo both the outside and inside while keeping the historical parts intact. Trees and shrubs will also be added to the property.
The church was built in 1939 and was moved from the corner of 102nd Street and 99th Avenue in 2008. It now sits across from the Grande Prairie Live Theatre.