Development Has Become New Savior for City Churches

The church will still have space for its meals program, serving hundreds of homeless people daily.

A few blocks away, Calvary Baptist Church raised $12 million selling two parcels and air rights to a developer who put up offices at Eighth and G streets NW.

The congregation's usual dilemma, how to raise money, was supplanted by how to use it. Replacing the church steeple and reconstructing two buildings were obvious needs. But a kitchen the church had planned for feeding the homeless seemed outdated, partly because the area had become more affluent. Instead, Calvary uses the kitchen to teach youngsters, one of the youth programs the church now hosts as a result of the development.

The project also created problems that tested the congregants' resolve, problems that went beyond practicing their faith amid the dust bowl of a construction site. Building costs soared so high that, by the end of the project, the church had no money to add to its endowment fund.

"We were dealing with large sums of money and the huge vastness of a project that is unfamiliar to us as a congregation of faith," the Rev. Amy Butler said. The costs "are natural parts of multimillion-dollar development," she said. "But how could we know that? If we were developers, we would have."

Churches began leaving the District in the 1980s for more space, easier parking and greater proximity to their congregants. The exodus included three large congregations that moved to Prince George's County: Evangel Temple, Jericho City of Praise and Turner Memorial AME Church.

Congregations are still migrating to the suburbs -- Metropolitan Baptist Church in Logan Circle is moving to Largo -- even as others use their land to secure their place in the city.

Yet not all churches are playing the real estate game. Shiloh Baptist Church has incurred the wrath of neighbors in Shaw by allowing seven buildings it owns to sit vacant for years. The Rev. Wallace Smith said the church prefers to turn the properties into affordable housing rather than allow developers to build condos, drive up neighborhood prices and "displace persons."

"We have no intention of allowing people who ran away from the city to now come back and buy our properties for what they would consider to be a pittance," he said. "We've been here."

The Mount Vernon church has also been a fixture, occupying its neoclassic-style home on Massachusetts Avenue since 1917. The fact that the church is enmeshed in its own construction project is a striking reversal of fortune.

A few years ago, the church's membership, which had reached 4,500 in 1960, had fallen below 100, with an average age of 82. Unable to draw new members and with $1 million in the bank as it faced mounting repairs, congregants resolved to "basically die with the church," Claycomb said. "The thought was, 'We tried to do everything, and nothing was working.' "

But the church's future improved when a developer, CarrAmerica Realty Corp., became interested in land Mount Vernon owned next door. Claycomb found herself in negotiations that grew rapidly more complex as CarrAmerica was bought by another company, which then sold its District holdings to Tishman Speyer Properties, a New York real estate company.

"It was the closest thing to hell I've ever experienced," Claycomb said of the period of negotiations, during which the church existed in limbo. "There were 80-year-old congregants wondering, 'If I die, where's my funeral going to be?' "

Carr Properties eventually bought the parcel, less than half a city block in size, and razed two small church-owned buildings. Carr is planning a 12-story office building, and the church will own a portion of three floors, including space for the coffee shop. As a result of the deal, the church is financing a $9 million renovation.

The sale, Claycomb said, has given the church a chance to recruit a new generation of Washingtonians moving downtown. She glanced out her window toward the horizon at CityVista, a condo rising in the distance with a rooftop pool.

"If we don't reach them, we're doing something horribly wrong," she said.

Claycomb described her role as one she never imagined during her religious study. "I'm developing a congregation and this building at the same time," she said. "I'm a spiritual leader and a developer."

The gush of money created by the sale, she said, poses challenging questions for a church typically more focused on spiritual concerns. "We're spending millions on these buildings; is that good?" she asked. "It depends on how you use the money, if you're using it to work on city problems. We can't just come back and have tea parties."