October 2016 to January 2017
While progress finding and appointing architects in the first half of 2016 was good, it became apparent that in order to develop the site according to our brief, it was going to cost a lot of money (£6m-£7m) and take some time. In the autumn of 2016 we were able to generate some revenue from the site in the form of a short-term rental client using a section of the ground floor for storage.
This provides the opportunity to refine the designs and get them right for us, look at establishing what funding opportunities might be available to us, without the church covering the high costs of the site being vacant.
In late December, a design team was formed of members of Community Church to operate as the main point of contact. We are already looking at a lower cost, more affordable option that the full design brief, that might enable the church to occupy the site sooner, and able us to transfer existing activity to the new site and grow incrementally from that site.