Church Sold; Will Become AdventHealth Care Pavilion

LifePoint Church, which took over the Winn-Dixie Supermarket in 2006, has moved to Wesley Chapel and AdventHealth is moving in. (Photo: Charmaine George)

The LifePoint Church building located on Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. in front of Hunter’s Green, has been sold to Advent Health, which intends to renovate it into a “care pavilion.”

AdventHealth paid $7.4 million for the 5.84-acre property and reportedly will spend $8.44 million more to renovate it, and plans to include exam rooms and imaging capabilities such as MRIs, X-rays and CT scans.

“We are still working to determine which care services will best fit the needs of the community,” says Richelle Hoenes-Ahearn, a spokesperson for AdventHealth. “We are excited about the opportunity to bring this kind of facility to the area and make it more convenient and accessible for people to prioritize health and wellness.”

Tampa City Council member Luis Viera, who represents District 7, which includes New Tampa, says he is working with AdventHealth to be sure the facility meets the needs of the New Tampa community.

He plans to have a meeting with AdventHealth in November to allow neighborhood leaders to ask any questions they may have about the project.

“This is a facility with a lot of potential benefits to the New Tampa area,” he says. “Dialogue is key.”

Meanwhile, LifePoint Church has moved its services to Wesley Chapel and also changed its name to The Gathering Church. 

Executive pastor Brian Brown says the sale of the building is not related to the effects of Covid-19. In fact, he says, discussions with AdventHealth started well before the pandemic hit, when the hospital system approached the church with an offer.

Brian says the church had previously been approached by other suitors looking to purchase the building, but the offer from AdventHealth was, “the right price at the right time.”

The sale closed in mid-September, which was at the end of at least nine or ten months of discussion and work towards that goal, says Brian. He added that the lengthy process AdventHealth had to go through for permitting and rezoning was somewhat delayed because parts of the government had been shut down due the pandemic.

LifePoint originally purchased the building in 2006, when it was a vacant former Winn-Dixie supermarket and the church was meeting at the New Tampa Family YMCA. LifePoint opened its doors at the building in 2007.

“It was great for us,” says Brian, “but we’ve had a change in focus as a ministry.”

Brad White is the senior pastor for the church, which at one time had multiple campuses in Hillsborough and Pasco counties. Now, the church is exclusively in Wesley Chapel, meeting at Wiregrass Ranch High on Mansfield Blvd. on Sundays at 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m. and noon.

“We have now focused all of our attention on the Wesley Chapel area,” says Brian. “That’s where all the growth is going.”

He says the church did a demographic study of its database and found that the majority of its congregation was coming from Wesley Chapel anyway, so the decision was made to move into the area where its people are living.

While the church may purchase another building in the future, for now, that’s not its priority.

“Our focus is just to love people and to help them begin a relationship with God,” says Brian, adding that buildings that are only used once a week cost a lot of money to maintain. “Now, dollars that were being spent on a facility are being used to facilitate relationships. We’re excited. It’s a great location for AdventHealth, so it’s a win-win for everybody.”

Atonement Lutheran Church Cuts A Ribbon On New Fellowship Hall

A ribbon was cut on Sept. 7 for Atonement Lutheran Church’s new building, which has added more space for the church’s many ministries, including a food pantry that feeds up to 250 families each week.

The newly built structure in front of Atonement Lutheran Church may be somewhat nondescript, but the fact that it exists at all is something of a miracle, considering the church was once facing its last rites.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony was held on Sept. 7, to officially mark the opening of the church’s new Fellowship Hall.

At about 2,800 square feet, it is triple the size of the church’s former multi-purpose room, which only held about 70 people. The new room’s capacity is 200.

Pastor Scott Lindner says it’s an exciting sign of growth for the small church, which has been a part of the community for 30 years, but almost closed its doors for good in the early 2000s.

Lindner says instead of giving up, a former pastor sold five of the church’s original 13 acres to a developer to create the neighboring office park.

“When I got here in 2006, they had just burned the mortgage,” Lindner explains.

As Wesley Chapel has grown, the church has grown, too. Atonement Lutheran church regularly sees about 100 families in worship during the summer, and that number doubles in the winter when the “snowbirds” return to Florida.

The church also just celebrated the 10-year anniversary of its food pantry program, which feeds up to 250 families each week with 15,000 pounds of food.

“Our ministries have grown so much in the past five years,” says Rebecca Parker, a church member who also is a volunteer and chair of its worship and music committee. “We needed more space, so this is very exciting for us.”

Pastor Lindner agrees: “We’ve known for years this time would come.”

The new building will be used for not only Atonement’s own full congregation, but also for some ministries and outside groups to use. In fact, the New River Branch Library plans to host some of its programs in the building when it closes for renovations this fall.

The Fellowship Hall also will be used for a weekly family service the congregants call “Child of God,” which is held every Sunday at 11 a.m. 

The entire family hears a message geared toward children from the pastor. Then, the kids break off to do a craft or activity, while the pastor goes over what he calls a “home blueprint” relating to the message.

“It’s like children’s church, but also a parent support group,” explains Lindner. “There’s a story, questions, prayer guides and suggested activities, so you can make your house an extension of the church.”

Five years ago, Atonement Lutheran held a capital campaign that raised $300,000 to fund the building.

“It took us years to figure out what would work and what we could get permitted and what we could afford,” Lindner says. Over those years, prices increased, and the church will take a loan to cover the rest of the costs, which are expected to come in at about $125,000, once all of the final expenses are tallied, including permitting, landscaping and other expenses.

“We’ve been able to be generous to nonprofits by allowing them to use our building at no cost, and we will continue to do that,” says Lindner. “We believe this is a special place; that’s what keeps us going.”

The Wesley Chapel Noon Rotary Club also has announced that it will again feed hundreds of people in need at Atonement Lutheran for the club’s annual “Turkey Gobble” meal on Thanksgiving morning.  

Atonement Lutheran Church is located at 29617 S.R. 54. To learn more about the church, visit DiscoverALC.com or call (813) 973-2211.

Grace Episcopal Church In Tampa Palms Dedicates Its New Sanctuary!

Grace Episcopal Church of Tampa Palms recently dedicated and consecrated its new sanctuary building.

A special prayer was written for the occasion by the head of the Episcopal Church, The Most Rev. Michael B. Curry, Presiding Bishop and Primate, who preached at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle last May. 

In a message to Grace, Bishop Curry thanked God for, “the Love that connects us all and fills our lives with hope and meaning” and asked God, to, “be present in the ministry within these walls and beyond.”

The ceremony, held Jan. 12, was the realization of a dream that has been in place since nearly the inception of the church itself in 1992.

“It is now a place where Tampa Palms and all of New Tampa can have weddings and funerals,” says Warren Sponsler, a member of the church who serves as its senior warden, which is essentially the leader of the people of the congregation. “It is the church rededicating itself to Tampa Palms and the New Tampa community.”

The church’s original master plan called for a sanctuary to be built on the corner of Tampa Palms Blvd. and Bruce B. Downs (BBD) Blvd. But, in 2013, Hillsborough County annexed that land to widen BBD, paying nearly $4.5 million for the property.

With that land gone, the church’s leadership wasn’t sure if there was still enough space to build a separate sanctuary, but they started working on a new master plan, eventually breaking ground in June of 2017.

Church members worshipped for the first time in their new building the Sunday before Christmas a few weeks ago.

Rev. Benjamin Twinamaani, who has led the church since 2005, says the church community hopes to welcome people of all faiths to host their events at Grace Church.

“It’s time to honor our commitments and be the church of the community here in Tampa Palms,” he says.

“Our parish is truly diverse,” he explains. “We both gather and anchor the community, whether they’re Hindu, Muslim, or atheists. We have room for all.”

The design of the building is traditional, with wooden pews, stained glass windows and even a bell tower, but it also has modern and comfortable touches, such as cushions on the pews, space for the church’s youth band to play, and screens on the walls.

Bishop Dabney T. Smith, who oversees the Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida, calls its design “purposeful.” 

“The shape of the construction and the expansion is a very traditional shape that will be accepting of contemporary worship,” he said. “It’s a good combination —that tradition is a mooring in people’s lives, and contemporary means dealing with the real issues of today.”

Three stained glass windows have been installed so far, with each window sponsored by members of the congregation as part of Grace’s capital campaign, and an additional nine windows will be installed as they are completed.

“I hope the larger community will take the opportunity to check it out,” Bishop Smith says.

The beautiful, new sanctuary also includes an organ which was imported from the Netherlands.

“One of the features is a bell carillon, which can be played by the organ inside the church,” says Sponsler. “It isn’t just bells ringing. It’s designed so we can have a wedding outside and could have something customized playing on the bells during the ceremony.”

The new sanctuary is 3,600 square feet and seats about 300 people. This is comparable to the 290 people that fit in the previous space, but now both spaces are available to use for different purposes.

A Community Hall For Everyone

The new building allows the space that was previously used as a sanctuary to be converted to a community room that can now be used for events such as candidate forms, community meetings, bar and bat mitzvahs, anniversary parties, birthday parties and more. 

The church also can now host a wedding in the new sanctuary and then a reception in the Canterbury Hall, as they call it.

Fees for community groups to use the church will be “very nominal,” says Karen Frashier, a member of the church (and New Tampa Rotary Club past president) who is helping with marketing the new space.

As the church’s original sanctuary, Canterbury Hall  has windows overlooking the conservation area behind the church, modern lighting and a brand new commercial kitchen with catering available.

Father Twinamaani explains, “It is the fulfillment of a dream from the inception of the congregation of Grace Church to have a larger space. They made the decision to make a difference not only in their church community, but in the surrounding community as well.”

So far, Father Twinamaani says people are definitely showing an interest in both the community center and the church.

“People like new things,” he says. “We have more people visiting every week, and we have people who have been in the pews for years who are now asking what they can do to serve. The new sanctuary gives a sense of permanence that we are here to stay.”

Grace Episcopal Church, located at 15102 Amberly Dr. in Tampa Palms, holds services each Sunday at 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Visitors are always welcome. For more information about hosting an event at the church’s Canterbury Hall or new sanctuary, visit GraceChurchTampaPalms.org or call (813) 971-8484.