Houston's First Baptist expanding downtown

Houston's First Baptist Church, which for years expanded into the suburbs along with the region's booming population, is making a push back to downtown in pursuit of the millennials, college students and growing families inhabiting the urban core and the neighborhoods around it.

One of the city's most prominent megachurches, with a flagship campus that attracts 7,000 worshippers on Sundays, Houston's First Baptist is expected to close next week on the purchase of a 40,000-square-foot office building in the southeast corner of the central business district. It will transform what is now a union hall at 1730 Jefferson into a satellite worship center for up to 700 people.

Services at the new location are set to begin in April, and renovations are slated to begin within the next several months.

"We told the architects we want to reach out to millennials. We said, 'Let's make it architecturally inviting,'" senior pastor Gregg Matte said. "It's a pretty different-looking church building."

The church moved its main campus out of downtown decades ago. Its return was hailed by Bob Eury, who has worked to grow the population of the inner city though tax breaks for developers and other business-friendly incentives.

"What's so great about it is they can see a future residential community, which is growing up in the area," said Eury, executive director of the Houston Downtown Management District.

'More work to be done'

Over the past two decades, more than $9 billion in public and private investments have been made toward making downtown a more vibrant place, according to district research. Downtown's residential population of 5,400 is more than double what it was in 2004.

Developers have built more than 1,400 residential units in the last two years, and they will add more than 2,000 more within the next year.

In addition, growth has been substantial in the slightly larger area encompassing a two-mile radius from the center of downtown.

This "Greater Downtown" region was home to 65,297 residents in 2014, up 33 percent from 2000, according to the District. More than 50 percent of households are made up of families, and more than 11,000 children call the area home.

Other churches have expanded their ministries to reach a younger population.

"Clearly, a lot of folks are moving in," said Steve Wells, pastor of South Main Baptist Church in Midtown, which is in the final stages of a $12 million sanctuary renovation.

Houston's First Baptist has retained a small presence downtown, currently meeting in the underground tunnel system. Wells said he welcomes the larger presence.

"There is more work to be done than any one church is going to do," he said.

Generous congregation

Some studies show church attendance is shrinking nationally, but First Baptist is increasing in both attendance and membership, said Steven Murray, the church's director of communications.

Financially, it is a church to be reckoned with.

Once the church identified the downtown building it hoped to buy, it was able to obtain almost 80 percent of the purchase price from donors. The rest will be covered from existing church coffers.

Then during a Sunday service in February, the church held a "day of giving" across all of its campuses and asked worshippers to give toward the downtown project to raise the renovation funds.

"We announced the total yesterday: $3.8 million," Murray said. "We are very happy with that."

Aside from its main campus at 7401 Katy Freeway, Houston's First Baptist has locations in Cypress, Sienna Plantation, as well as its downtown congregation. The church also has a Spanish-speaking campus that meets at its Katy Freeway home.

Like other downtown churches, Matte said the new First Baptist satellite will not just minister to the well-to-do young people renting expensive downtown apartments. He noted that a homeless couple who started going to services in the tunnel ended up getting married there.

"We're not looking past them to just reach the hip, urban, cool millennials. We want both," Matte said. "Downtown's a part of our heart and our history. We really want to reach downtown in the sense of making a difference."

Houston's First Baptist started downtown in 1841 and moved out in the 1970s to what was then considered a suburban location along Interstate 10 at the West Loop.

The church has held Bible study classes downtown since it moved, and it restarted Sunday services there in 2011.

Its congregation has been meeting on the tunnel level of 1010 Lamar, the building developed on the site where the church once stood. Sunday services in the tunnel location average about 150 people.

The church's downtown pastor, Lee Hsia, will continue to lead the downtown campus.

The church said it had been looking for a more permanent location for a while as downtown and the neighborhoods around it grew.

"When we started down there, we only had adult stuff, Bible study, worship study," Murray said. "Five years have passed and people have kids. Now we have people that provide classes for children and students."

The church's ministry for college students will move into the new building.

In addition to downtown residents, the church expects to attract worshippers from Midtown, the East End, the River Oaks area and the Heights.

"It's not terribly far from our main campus, but some people go to it for a variety of reasons. They go for the smaller setting and amazing, eclectic, diverse nature of it," Murray said. "At one point, over 20 different nations were represented in that mix down there."

Multipurpose building

The building on Jefferson has a central gathering space on the first floor that will be able to hold between 600 and 700 worshippers, Murray said.

The second and third floors house office space. The church plans to use some of it for Sunday school classes, children's ministries and possibly lease some out to other groups it affiliates with. The Kirksey architecture firm is designing the renovations.

A confidentiality agreement prevented the church from disclosing the purchase price, Murray said.

The building is on about 2 acres and it includes some 90 parking spaces. The church is investigating surface lots around it to see if any may be available for use on Sunday.

The building is owned and occupied by the Communications Workers of America/Local 6222.

Harris County appraised the building and land last year at $5.98 million.