Adelaide’s Trinity Church, a leader in church planting will host a $450m, 28-level office tower on its car park behind its historic buildings.
Trinity will benefit from the ground rent from the site, which is owned by the church’s trustees.
“Since 1836, Trinity Church has served and nurtured the people of Adelaide and South Australia. The proposed Trinity City development will enhance our ability to continue our mission for decades and generations to come,” Paul Harrington, senior pastor of the Trinity Network, told the Financial Review.
The developers 1835 Capital and Marlborough Capital will pay to restore Trinity Church, South Australia’s oldest church, and two other historic buildings at the site. The church won’t lose the car park as there will be 173 EV-enabled car parks.
The tower includes a 200-person hall. “Our plan is to continue using the Church building as our main gathering space, this has a seated capacity of 300,” Trinity Church Adelaide’s Ben Chapman tells TheOtherCheek. “The new ministry facilities will provide us with better amenities (eg kids ministry spaces) to support our gatherings. It is also our hope and prayer that this development will allow us to have contact with more people outside of Sundays by creating a site that people walk through rather than past.”
Trinity is both Adelaide’s oldest church founded in 1836 and a network that includes some of the youngest due to the Trinity Network planting more churches. There are now 14 sites throughout Adelaide with three, Mile End, Tonsley and Campbelltown planted in 2022.
The tower development is unusual in that Anglican Church property is normally held by the Diocese (regional body). But the land on which this new tower will be built has been held by the Trinity trustees outside the normal Anglican system.