St Kilda’s landmark St Andrews Presbyterian Church, a huge building, has just gone on the market. On the brow of a hill, it is one of the Melbourne suburb’s main features.
“At the corner of Alma and Barkly Streets, the church is expected to earn the religious group more than $3m,” Realcommercial.com.au reports
The fate of St Andrews is something luxurious; if an executive of Collier’s, Philip Heberling, comments are anything to go by, he said, “This unique property presents numerous redevelopment opportunities for residential or office repositioning, from luxury apartments and grand residences to modern office spaces and fine-dining venues.”
The Nine paper’s headline “Jingle bells fall silent as Christmas starts with sale of churches” covers the story of the Presbyterians selling St Andrews in St Kilda, the Uniting Church selling a church in Daylesford and the Anglicans selling Holy Trinity in Sebastopol near Ballarat. All three are substantial gthic brick buildings with additional land. Each have evident development potential.
News.com.au reports that the St Andrews Presbyterian congregation is growing but they have a modern church building in Hotham Street East St Kilda that they can relocate to.
St Georges Presbyterian, in the centre of Geelong was sold earlier this year, with other Presbyterian churches in town a reason for the sale.
Stu Cameron, CEO/Superintendent of the largest Uniting Church in Sydney, Wesley Mission, got a strong positive reaction from many evangelicals when he posted his denomination should ““Release property joyfully”
“Here’s my very practical suggestion,” Cameron wrote. ” “Property Trusts should NOT sell any redundant congregational asset unless a new missional initiative (in or outside the geographic area) is identified that can be directly linked to the property proceeds for the sale. If that condition cannot be met, we should invite churches, in particular church plants, OUTSIDE our denomination (Baptist, ACC, Churches of Christ etc.) to express interest in its use on a long-term basis for a peppercorn lease of $1 per year, plus ongoing maintenance costs.
“All our property is held in a legally established Trust. AND there is a spiritual trust attached to the property we have been blessed with. Simply put, these are NOT Uniting Church resources, but kingdom assets – and its incumbent for us to treat them as such. There are church planting movements (denominational and independent), people-ready, that are desperate for property such as we have. We have no good reason NOT to release it to them if we have it and have no other effective missional use for it. Can we be so bold, generous and open handed? I hope so; the gospel requires it of us.”
If it is right for the Uniting Church to consider the need’s of church planters outside their denomination, it should also apply to avowedly evangelical denominations, surely. After all they are closer to church planting movements such as Reach Australia, theologically.
Could the St Kilda or Geelong Presbyterian properties been used by FIEC or Acts 29 church plants? This writer does not know if they might have been approached. Another example is the inner Sydney suburb of Marrickville where Baptist and Church of Christ churches have closed and the property sold or in the case of the Church of Christ developed as social housing in partnership with the innovative Nightingale group. Meanwhile church plants in the area have had to find alternatives – for example, Anchor church with an Acts 29 affiation, meets in the local “Factory theatre.”
Sometimes churches sell property, to purchase a better location. For example the Anglican church in Telopea and Dundas sold their properties and have been meeting in Tara School while they build Shepherd’s Wharf Anglican Church Rydalmere.
Selling property, especially in established cities carries a risk. the CBD fringe of Sydney offers a prime example. St Alban’s Anglican church Ultimo was sold by the Sydney Anglicans in 1975 and St Batholomews Pyrmont waas closed and demolished in 1970 when the area was full of derelict warehouse and factories.
It is unlikely that inner city property will be within the reach of new emerging churches, or even if an established denomination could ever buy it back.
The Ultimo Pyrmont penisula is now one of the most densely populated areas in sydney following the redevelopment of Darling Harbor in the mid 1980’s. But the growth of population as the peninsula rebounded from the 80s has not been matched by church planting. Property will have played a part.