Charlotte was once referred to as “The City of Churches”, we used to have a church on virtually every block of the city – even today we have over 1,200 total church brands throughout the greater Charlotte region.
We have an incredible diverse mix of churches – from one of America’s largest multi-site churches (Elevation), to America’s largest catholic parish (St. Matthews), to hundreds historic churches of almost every denomination.
One church, however, is about to do something truly unique.
‘Venture Church’ has just had their rezoning request approved by the Harrisburg Town Council. They will now be building a debt-free, mixed-use church building like no other on 7.98 acres at 9565 Rocky River Road.
Venture Church’s new building will include:
- A 93 room hotel
- A 350 seat auditorium
- A daycare facility
- A full service restaurant with a drive-thru
- A coffee shop
- A recreational sports club
- A health club and fitness center
The auditorium would be set up so that it could be used for both religious services and events for the hotel on a flexible calendar schedule.
At this week’s rezoning hearing, the issue of taxes were brought up. Typically, a church service or a wedding wouldn’t be considered taxable, but a business conference, with paying hotel guests would be taxable.
City officials stated that the Cabarrus County tax assessor would determine which specific activities on the multi-use project will be taxed after its built.
The new mixed-use church is expected to create at least 100 new jobs, including hotel, restaurant, daycare, and maintenance workers.
Venture Church started about 16 years ago and have since been meeting in temporary facilities, including Jay M. Robinson High School, and Hickory Ridge High School.
What do you think about the new mixed-use church concept?
I have mixed feeling about this … But we’ll see. This concept has been tried before . Does anyone know if this building will be used for ministry as well, e.g. for the poor, etc. ?
This is a great idea! Instead of having your building sitting around useless all week, simply draining your people’s money, let’s put it to work! Having your building serve as a business during the week is no different than meeting in a school, as many churches do. The church is the people, after all, not the building. Now, if these Venture people are real Christians, then that’s more money to do great things with. Of course, there is always a chance that they may not be motivated properly. But, to just assume they are going through all this hassle, effort, and risk just to skirt taxes is weird. They were tax-exempt, with plenty of money before the project. (Did we forget the project is debt-free?) Business deals this unique are extremely risky. You don’t invest millions of dollars in a venture most people won’t even understand to save a few bucks in taxes. Why are we so ready to land on the first negative thing we can imagine, rather than putting a little effort in to think things through?